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CHARLESTON -- Democratic leaders in the House of Delegates hope to build on West Virginia's successful primary and general election last year with a "total rewrite" of election law.
House Bill 2814, the Election Security, Access, and Modernization Act of 2021, was introduced Tuesday in the House of Delegates. The bill was referred to the Judiciary and Finance committees.
Del. John Doyle, D-Jefferson, was the lead sponsor of the bill. He was joined Tuesday in a press conference with House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, and Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia.
The 55-page bill would allow for no-excuse absentee voting. The current law requires those requesting absentee ballots to list a reason on the application. The bill also would require absentee ballots be mailed to all active voters, simplify requirements for requesting emergency absentee ballots and allow for absentee ballot drop-off boxes (one box per 10,000 active voters).
West Virginians were able to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a valid medical excuse to request an absentee ballot for the 2021 primary and general elections. All registered voters were mailed postcard-size absentee ballot applications for the primary, which was moved to June 2020 by executive order. For the general election, a web portal was created to request an absentee ballot.
According to the West Virginia Secretary of State, the 2020 election was the second highest election in state history for voter turnout with 802,726 ballots cast. Hansen said West Virginia's pandemic absentee voting plan should continue on as a permanent plan.
"Due to those changes in the rules, we had unprecedented high turnout," Hansen said. "Some of these things that we tried and experimented with last year, we need to put into state code. We're proud of what we did, but we can go even a little bit further than those changes that were made by the secretary of state in order to have even more secure elections and have even greater accessibility."
While state code allows for hand-delivering absentee ballots to county clerks one day before an election, HB 2814 would allow absentee ballots to be hand-delivered to county clerks on election day. The bill would also allow for hand-delivery of up to 10 ballots by one person to a county clerk, also known as "ballot harvesting."
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 10 states allow a family member to deliver a ballot for a voter, while 26 states allow a designee to deliver the absentee ballot, putting limits on the number of ballots a designee can deliver at one time. West Virginia already allows one person to deliver no more than two absentee ballots.
Other provisions of HB 2814 would eliminate signature match requirements for provisional ballots and at the polls, remove the authority of poll officials from questioning voter claims of disability for the purpose of having assistance when it isn't needed, extends the time period for a confirmation card to be mailed to idle voters from four years to 12 years, and removes federal requirements to remove inactive voter registrations after non-voting in two federal general elections.