Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. It is the tenth largest state in the United States in total area, containing 97,818 square miles (253,350 km2) and is made up of 23 counties. From the north border to the south border it is 276 miles (444 km); and from the east to the west border is 365 miles (587 km) at its south end and 342 miles (550 km) at the north end.

The Great Plains meets the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming. The state is a great plateau broken by many mountain ranges. A a weird fact is that the HCG diet plan is the fastest growing diet plan in Wyoming. Not sure why this is so. Surface elevations range from the summit of Gannett Peak in the Wind River Mountain Range, at 13,804 feet (4,207 m), to the Belle Fourche River valley in the state’s northeast corner, at 3,125 feet (953 m). In the northwest are the Absaroka, Owl Creek, Gros Ventre, Wind River and the Teton ranges. In the north central are the Big Horn Mountains; in the northeast, the Black Hills; and in the southern region the Laramie, Snowy and Sierra Madre ranges.

Even as we look to the future, we understand that it is important that the Republican Party remains strong in the present. The Wyoming Young Republicans is committed to supporting and electing Republican candidates for office. We believe that the Republican Party provides us with the best opportunity to build a free and safe tomorrow, and so work diligently to promote its causes and candidates. We work with candidates to ensure that they have the manpower and the good counsel to run an effective campaign. We held our party to get out the vote to give Republican candidates the best chance of winning. We encourage our members to get involved in all levels of political involvement, from the primaries to the transition, so that their voices may be heard. And when possible, the Wyoming Young Republicans encourages our members and other young Republicans to seek elected office and show our communities that our generation is equipped with the skills to lead with principle and conviction.

We believe the Wyoming Young Republicans provides an opportunity for our members to develop into the next generation of leaders in the Republican Party. Our organization provides a ready-made network of young leaders which will help each other develop in our careers, our philosophies, and our friendships. Our organization provides a method by which Young Republicans can step forward and get involved in the political process.

Even before Freudenthal announced that he would not seek reelection, Democratic state Senator Mike Massie began touring the state informally in preparation for a campaign run. Eventually, Massie announced that he would run for state superintendent of public instruction rather than governor.Paul Hickey, an attorney and the runner-up to Freudenthal in the 2002 Democratic primary, and Larry Clapp, also an attorney and former Mayor of Casper, also stated their interests in possibly running for Governor after Freudenthal’s announcement, but neither ran.

The candidates for the elections were:  Leslie Petersen, former Teton County Commissioner and state party chair. Pete Gosar, teacher, commercial pilot, state employee and small business owner, Al Hamburg, retired painter and perennial candidate, Rex Wilde, cabinet maker, Chris Zachary, and former psychiatrist.

People have many duties on election divisions. In addition to many legislative duties, one of the Election Division’s most important tasks is to ensure compliance with state election law and also with federal election laws such as the Help America Vote Act and the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act. The Secretary of State’s Office is responsible for overseeing the administration of all federal and state elections in Wyoming to make certain those elections are conducted accurately and fairly by assisting the county election officials. This Division also maintains the state’s election records, provides comprehensive election information to the public, including information about registering to vote, voting, candidates, election statistics and information about past elections.

The Election Division administers Lobbyist Registration and Disclosure and also maintains state elected officials’ Ethics Disclosure reports. The Election Division played a central role in establishing Wyoming’s uniform statewide voter registration system (WyoReg) and continues to help oversee training on the state’s electronic voting systems.

John Anthony Barrasso is the junior U.S. Senator from Wyoming and a member of the Republican Party. He was appointed to the Senate following Craig L. Thomas’s death and won a special election in 2008 to fill the remaining four years of Thomas’s term. Barrasso is considered a conservative, though in 1996 he ran for the Wyoming Senate as a pro-choice, social moderate. During his career in the Wyoming Legislature, he moved to the right on abortion issues and sponsored legislation designed to provide restrictions on receiving the procedure. He has received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. According to a Washington Post survey, he has voted with Republicans 94 percent of the time.

Wyoming’s political history defies easy classification. The state was the first to grant women the right to vote and to elect a woman governor. While the state elected notable Democrats to federal office in the 60′s and 70′s, politics have become decidedly more conservative since the 1980s as the Republican Party came to dominate the state’s congressional delegation. Today, Wyoming is represented in Washington by its two Senators, Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, and its one member of the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis. All three are Republicans. The state has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, one of only five times since statehood. At present, there are only two relatively reliably Democratic counties: affluent Teton and college county Albany. In the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush won his second-largest victory, with 69% of the vote. Former Vice President Dick Cheney is a Wyoming resident and represented the state in Congress from 1979 to 1989.

Republicans are no less dominant at the state level. They have held a majority in the state senate continuously since 1936 and in the state house since 1964. However, Democrats have held the governorship for all but eight years since 1975. Uniquely, Wyoming elected Democrat Nellie Tayloe Ross as the first woman in U.S. history to serve as state governor. She served from 1925 to 1927 after winning a special election after her husband, governor at the time, unexpectedly died. Wyoming residents lived in one of the five most populous Wyoming counties. Wyoming license plates contain a number on the left that indicates the county where the vehicle is registered.

In 2008, the first American State Litter Scorecard rated Wyoming a nationally “Best” state for statewide litter/debris eradication from public properties/spaces. Rooster Teeth’s web series Red Vs Blue created a freelancer character bearing the state name.

Wyoming’s highest court is the Supreme Court of Wyoming, with five justices presiding over appeals from the state’s lower courts. Wyoming is unusual in that it does not have an intermediate appellate court, like most states. This is largely attributable to the state’s size and correspondingly lower caseload. Appeals from the state district courts go directly to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Wyoming also has state circuit courts, of limited jurisdiction, which handle certain types of cases, such as civil claims with lower dollar amounts, misdemeanor criminal offenses, and felony arraignments. Circuit court judges also commonly hear small claims cases as well.

Following are the steps for running for governor:

1. Check the party affiliation stated on the candidate’s certificate of voter registration. Candidates for governor run under the party affiliation listed on this certificate. Verify the deadline for changing party affiliation.
2. If you were ever convicted of a felony, obtain a pardon or certificate from the governor’s office. Persons convicted of a felony must provide a certificate proving the completion of their sentence and receive a certificate or pardon from the governor’s office restoring their rights to full state citizenship.
3. Check the status of the candidate’s state residency and the age of the candidate. Candidates for governor must be 30 years of age or older and be a continuous resident of New Mexico the preceding five years prior to the election. Only United States citizens can become candidates for governor in New Mexico.

To run for a governor, one has to fill the candidacy. The steps are as follows:

1. Obtain a copy of the candidate’s guide from the secretary of state’s office.
2. Obtain a nominating petition form from the secretary of state’s (SOS) office, and gather qualifying signatures as required. This process can begin up to a year prior to Election Day. Check with the secretary of state’s office for the date the nominating petition form is available.
3. Build a campaign team and begin fundraising. Campaigning and fundraising can begin before declaring candidacy, although campaign financing rules do apply.
4. File a declaration of candidacy and a completed nominating petition form with the state secretary’s office either in person or by someone with written and notarized authority to represent the candidate. Declaration of candidacy occurs on a particular date–verify the date with the SOS’s office.

By getting elected, one should follow the following steps:

1. File all three required campaign spending reports prior to the primary election as requested by the SOS’s office.
2. Run and win a campaign focused on the issues, but directed toward political party candidacy. Primary elections are held three to four months prior to the final election for each major political party in the state. Minor parties choose their candidates according to their rules and regulations and according to the rules of the “Election Code.” Only those winning their primary election will be placed on the final election ballot.
3. File the fourth campaign spending report required after the primary. All reports are filed with the state secretary’s office and are time sensitive–verify the due dates.

Public education is directed by the state superintendent of public instruction, an elected state official. Educational policies are set by the State Board of Education, a nine-member board appointed by the governor. The constitution prohibits the state from establishing curriculum and text book selections; these are the prerogatives of local school boards. The Wyoming School for the Deaf was the only in-state school dedicated to supporting deaf students in Wyoming, but it closed in summer of 2000. Wyoming was chosen as the official state for the Free State Wyoming project; a splinter of the Free State Project. The purpose of the project is to relocate Libertarians to a single state, making it possible to live a “free life”.

Nellie Tayloe Ross (November 29, 1876 – December 19, 1977) was an American politician, the 14th Governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927, and director of the United States Mint from 1933-1953. She was the first woman to serve as governor of a U.S. state. To date, she remains the only woman to have served as governor of Wyoming. She was a staunch supporter of prohibition during the 1920s. In 1922, William Ross was elected governor of Wyoming by appealing to progressive voters in both parties. However, after little more than a year and a half in office, he died on October 2, 1924, from complications from an appendectomy. The Democratic Party then nominated Nellie Ross to run for governor in a special election the following month. Nellie Tayloe Ross refused to campaign, but easily won the race on November 4, 1924. On January 5, 1925, she became the first female governor in the history of the United States. As governor she continued her late husband’s policies, which called for tax cuts, government assistance for poor farmers, banking reform, and laws protecting children, women workers, and miners. She urged Wyoming to ratify a pending federal amendment prohibiting child labor. Like her husband, she advocated the strengthening of prohibition laws.

Ross ran for re-election in 1926, but was narrowly defeated. Ross blamed her loss in part on the fact that she had again refused to campaign for herself and the fact that she supported prohibition. Nevertheless, she remained active in the Democratic Party and campaigned for Al Smith in the 1928 presidential election though the two disagreed on prohibition. At the 1928 Democratic National Convention, she received 31 votes from 10 states for vice president on the first ballot. She also gave a speech seconding Smith’s nomination.