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Two West Virginia County Clerks Are Refusing People’s Online Voter Registrations

A letter to a voter who tried to register online in West Virginia. CREDIT: SCREENSHOT COURTESY THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE-MAIL
A letter to a voter who tried to register online in West Virginia. CREDIT: SCREENSHOT COURTESY THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE-MAIL

Could this be the Kim Davis story of voter registration?

Two county clerks in West Virginia are refusing to accept online-only voter registrations, saying their state’s process is not secure enough because it doesn’t require would-be voters to provide signatures.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail’s David Gutman reported on Monday that both Kanawha County Clerk Vera McCormick and Cabell County Clerk Karen Cole are requiring potential voters to mail in paper affidavits in order to complete their online registrations.

Each time McCormick and Cole receive a new online voter registration, they mail a pre-stamped envelope to the voter and tell them to send it back with their signature. West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant told the Gazette-Mail that about 1,300 would-be voters in Cabell County have been denied online-only registration. McCormick told the Gazette-Mail that she’s sent forms to 30 to 40 people every day for the last six months, and that the “vast majority” of people have returned their forms.

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Reached by phone, McCormick told ThinkProgress that she’s motivated by concerns about voter fraud, and believes signatures are necessarily to verify a person’s identify.

“You don’t know who is at that keyboard filling out that information,” McCormick said. “We are just trying to protect our citizens and our voters. I want to protect that security and I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

In comments to the Gazette-Mail, Cole expressed a similar sentiment.

“You don’t sign anywhere, you just type in your name,” she said. “Until I know that it is truly accurate and it is truly nobody trying to change somebody else’s record, I’m just not comfortable with it.”

McCormick told ThinkProgress she didn’t believe she was really denying online voter registrations, because as long as people send back the signed paper form, she processes them. She said she accepts any and all changes to existing voter registrations, but if new voters want to register online, they just have to send her a affidavit.

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“I don’t think anybody would believe that we’ve ever made it harder for someone to vote,” she said. “We have early voting, we have parking here at the door. If people are at the hospital, we go to them. We try to make it easy for them to vote and we don’t disenfranchise voters.”

It does not seem that the clerks are breaking any laws. According to the Gazette-Mail, West Virginia allows county clerks to opt-out of online voter registration if they want to. But Tennant has criticized McCormick and Cole for not being forthright about their reasoning. Every other West Virginia county is accepting online voter registrations, she said.

Tennant isn’t the only one criticizing. Jennifer Meinig, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, told ThinkProgress that she had “serious concerns” about the clerks’ actions.

“I think we should make registering to vote as easy and seamless as possible, and it’s troubling that this extra step is being added,” she said. “Individuals might fill out the form online, but not have time or forget to deal with the subsequent form later.”

Though West Virginia has had a statute allowing online voter registration since 2013, the state’s system was implemented just six months ago.

The deadline to register to vote in West Virginia in April 19, and the state’s presidential primary is on May 10.