Online Poll: Near Tie On Getting Rid of Wyoming Death Penalty

In the closest vote ever for a Townsquare Media of Cheyenne/Laramie online poll, a tiny majority said no to getting ride of Wyoming's death penalty.

But the vote was virtually a statistical tie.

As of 4:30 a.m. Monday, 363 people voted against axing the death penalty, with 352 people voting in favor. That works out to a roughly 50 percent to 49 percent margin, with another 13 people saying they were not sure.

Interestingly, the Facebook page comments on the issue were much more one-sided than the vote, with a huge majority of commenters opposing the idea. But that uniformity of opinion did not show up among those who actually took the poll.

The poll ran over the past week on the Townsquare Media of Cheyenne and Laramie news station websites. The ACLU of Wyoming, along with some legislators and religious leaders, are backing a campaign to abolish the death penalty in the Cowboy State. A bill sponsored in the 2019 Wyoming Legislature to abolish Wyoming's death penalty won approval in the state House of Representatives but failed in the state Senate.

That bill was sponsored by Rep. Jared Olsen [R-Laramie County]

The ACLU is scheduled to appear on KGAB radio at 9 a.m. Monday to outline their reasons for opposing the Wyoming Death penalty.