Mountain State Times

The Public Interest Legal Foundation released a report Sept. 14 with findings that the federal elections bill proposed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) would overturn election laws in West Virginia.

According to the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a conservative legal group, West Virginia uses an absentee voting system that requires excuse-based absentee voting. Because of this, absentee voting in the state is less widespread and more highly secured against actions such as ballot fraud.

The PILF reports that in the 2020 West Virginia general election, 150,202 absentee ballots were mailed to voters, and of those ballots, only 33 were undeliverable, only 254 were rejected by election officials, and 6,135 were given “unknown” status, meaning that they may have not been filled out and returned. These clear-cut statistics indicate that West Virginia can effectively regulate its absentee voting system, the foundation said.

According to PILF, if the federal bill House Resolution 1/Senate 1 passes, West Virginia’s excuse-based absentee voting system would be outlawed. Excuse-based voting also would be outlawed in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee, Texas and South Carolina.

According to a statement issued by foundation President J. Christian Adams, “H.R. 1 and S. 1 cancel good election systems in West Virginia and other states. Manchin’s compromises hurt West Virginia. West Virginians demand good government and do not wish to see the instruments which are used to select their leaders increasingly go unaccounted for. West Virginia’s elections are already thoroughly supervised on the community level and the business of counting ballots tends to end on election night without incident. In this political climate, you can’t ask for anything better."

A promotional video from the Election Transparency Initiative recently urged Manchin to completely oppose S.1 in upcoming votes. The video stated, “West Virginians want elections in their state to be simple and secure, easy to vote and hard to cheat. We are calling on Sen. Joe Manchin to listen to his constituents and oppose S. 1, Washington’s attempt to override the state’s election laws. With public trust in elections at an all-time low, voters in West Virginia want to see increased security, transparency, and accountability – not a Washington takeover of state elections that serve the interests of corrupt politicians.”

Some Republicans could support working with Manchin to achieve federal election reform, but not for the same reasons Democrats are seeking to pass national legislation. Politico reports Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) of the Senate Rules Committee recently said “I’ve been talking to [Manchin] about some things that I could be for [such as] some ballot security ideas, an election advisory commission, [developing] standards that states would need to comply with to get federal funding in the future.”