| By Mac Warner, WV Secretary of State
Charleston Gazette-Mail reporter Phil Kabler recently misled readers on election reform being considered by the West Virginia Legislature. Kabler made no attempt to reach me or my staff to verify the accuracy of his story or for comment on the article.
The Legislature is considering the Security, Confidence & Integrity in WV Elections Act (Senate Bill 565), which will improve the state’s election process. SB 565 contains lessons learned in 2020 from our state’s 55 county clerks and the U.S. Postal Service.
Twice now, the U.S. Senate has invited me to testify regarding our highly successful 2020 elections, with senators citing West Virginia as having held some of the best elections in the nation. Nearly 80% of the state’s active voters (more than 802,000) voted in the general election in November 2020. Clearly, there are no issues with people registering to vote, and there are no problems with people being able to vote. Yet, our collaboration with the county clerks resulted in slight adjustments in legislation to improve the process.
The Gazette-Mail left out of its story that half of Democrat state senators joined Republicans to pass the SB 565 legislation. The title of Kabler’s article, “WV Senate passes bill to rein in voting options,” could not be further from the truth — and the Gazette-Mail knows it.
Using wrong information from articles such as Kabler’s, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his ilk will, no doubt, soon be calling West Virginians racists for wanting election security.
I met with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., when I testified before the Senate. We had a very constructive meeting, wherein he expressed his concerns with the chamber’s S1 legislation, or the For the People Act, apprehensions that mirrored our county clerks’ concerns.
As a former secretary of state, Manchin well understands the numerous election administration problems with S1 and agrees that many of the policies contained in the legislation won’t work in a one-size-fits-all approach by the federal government.
Knowing the unanimous opposition by our county clerks to S1, I was heartened to hear Manchin express his intent to seek bipartisan middle ground. He did not want S1 to further divide this country, and he would not support busting the Senate filibuster to pass S1. Having previously been in the minority, Manchin knows the filibuster ensures the minority gets a voice, and he certainly would not be the one who busted the filibuster.
On a number of occasions, I have discussed with Gazette-Mail management the responsibility of the paper to report election-related articles accurately. Their paper should not be a source of purposeful wrong information.
With one simple phone call, I could have prevented Phil Kabler from writing wrong information, had he so desired. I would have told him SB 565 does not make it harder to vote. SB 565 allows for the same number of early voting days, including two Saturdays. And Kabler’s citing of “voter suppression laws” is conjecture, not trusted news.
Most egregious was his intentionally misleading comment about purging voters after failing to vote for two years. My office has explained to Mr. Kabler numerous times that no name is ever taken off voter rolls for simply not voting.
Not voting for a time designated by code allows a clerk to confirm the address and the voter’s intent to stay registered at this location. Only after someone fails to respond, or their mail is returned as undeliverable, may a clerk place the name on inactive status. If the voter misses two more federal elections — for a total of inactivity of more than six years under this proposal — the clerks may remove the abandoned registration from the voter registration list.
All a voter needs to do during this six- to seven-year period is vote, contact their clerk or visit the Division of Motor Vehicles and ask to return to active status.
We have spent considerable time, money and effort to counter election misinformation from Iran, Russia and China. It is a shame that the biggest offender of pushing wrong information into the public domain is now our state’s largest newspaper. Kabler too often does not verify his information, and the Gazette-Mail permits him to do so.
Everyone should seek election-related information from trusted sources, and the Gazette-Mail has proven, time and again, their reporting on elections information cannot be trusted.
My office, our county clerks and the West Virginia Legislature are working together to continually improve election administration. We are transparent, open and deliberative. West Virginia leads the nation in safe and secure elections, and we will continue to do so, guaranteeing every eligible citizen access to the ballot box. |
