County clerks in West Virginia are being challenged to prepare for the upcoming primary election. The difficulties include a late start on statewide redistricting as well as the kind of computer changes that could be a headache for anybody.
“They’re working very hard to complete their redistricting, and all deserve medals for doing this under an expedited timeframe and using a new system that has experienced growing pains,” said Deak Kersey, general counsel for the Secretary of State’s Office.
The Secretary of State’s Office sent a letter last week to Gov. Jim Justice, outlining the ongoing challenges. They include:
- redistricting that got a late jump because of delayed population data from the federal government.
- legislative redistricting that changes the House of Delegates from 67 multi-member districts to 100 single-member districts and a decrease of congressional districts from three to two.
- technical growing pains with implementation of a new statewide voter registration system.
Starting Friday, clerks are supposed to begin mailing absentee ballots to people who have requested them.
As of March 8, officials calculated that 72% of all West Virginia voters had been redistricted into the correct precinct.
State officials plan an assessment today to determine the latest percentage of voters whose addresses have been confirmed as matching the updated districts and new precinct boundaries, Kersey said.
“Some counties (mainly the larger ones and those divided up significantly due to redistricting) have much work left to do. They’ll get there, but it’s not something that is resolved with the flip of a switch,” Kersey said in an email Wednesday.
Putnam County Clerk Brian Wood agreed with the continued effort needed to get ready, elaborating in an email that “every county is dealing with a different situation depending on how much they have to redistrict.”
“The West Virginia clerks have definitely been assigned a tall task. This is due to the delays with the Census numbers and legislative redistricting orders.” Wood also cited difficulties associated with the new statewide voter registration system.
Wood, who is president of the West Virginia County Clerks Association, also sent a letter to state officials last week, outlining “increasing concern.”
That letter laid out the late timetable on redistricting and the challenges of some of the new district maps, but mainly focused on the state’s voter registration vendor, Civix. Wood’s letter noted that a voter registration system upgrade was likely meant to improve election system capabilities and to make registration easier for voters.
“Unfortunately, at this time, the transition to this new software provided by Civix has been extremely complicated and marred by technical glitches that have significantly hamstrung updating voters affected by the redistricting process,” Wood wrote.
“At this moment, clerks are making slow progress towards assigning voters within the Civix software in order to prepare for this upcoming election.”
Wood noted that the county clerks, at the time, were not asking for legislative action.
But he cautioned that if the vendor could not fix the issues then help might be required to bring in more expertise to deal with the computer issues, to switch to a different statewide voter registration system from a new vendor or “in an extreme situation, legislation to delay the primary to a later date may be
necessary.”
In an email Wednesday, Wood said county clerks are working hard to overcome obstacles as the May 10 election gets closer.
“I can tell you that the clerks and their staff across the state are working day, night, and weekends to meet deadlines and provide the citizens of our great state with a safe and secure election,” he said.
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