Mac Warner Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Candidate Sends Thousands Of Voters Wrong Election Dates

A West Virginia resident alerted the office of Secretary of State Mac Warner Thursday that a candidate’s campaign messages misrepresented the dates of this year’s primary election.

A candidate running for statewide office sent thousands of West Virginia voters incorrect dates for this year’s primary election, according to Secretary of State Mac Warner.

Warner confirmed Thursday that his office received a verbal complaint regarding campaign text messages sent to many West Virginia voters containing inaccurate dates for the state’s primary election and early, in-person voting period.

Mike Queen, Warner’s deputy chief of staff, said that the incident seemed to be accidental, and resulted from campaign staff members copying the incorrect dates onto the candidate’s campaign messages.

Queen declined to disclose the candidate in question, and said his office notified the candidate of these concerns shortly after receiving the complaint. He added that the campaign team sent a follow-up text message clarifying the correct dates.

Still, “there is no way to correct it 100 percent,” Queen said.

Whether distributed intentionally or not, “inaccurate information disenfranchises voters,” he said. “It concerns voters, and a lot of times it leads to reduced confidence in the election process.”

Candidates accidentally distributing incorrect election information is uncommon, Queen said. However, this week’s incident was distinct due to its scale, with voters receiving the message across West Virginia.

“This isn’t the first time that it’s happened. There are folks who make a typo on a Facebook post,” he said. “We paid particular attention to this, and the only reason was this was such a large push out … so we wanted to make sure that we worked with the candidate to correct the error as soon as possible.”

Queen said Warner’s office took the incident as an opportunity to remind West Virginia voters to verify where they receive election information from, and rely only on the state’s election authorities — namely the secretary of state and county clerks.

“We work so hard to promote that there are only two trusted sources when it comes to election information, particularly dates,” he said.

Warner echoed Queen’s sentiments in a statement released Thursday.

“Even well-intended organizations and candidate committees encouraging voters to participate in the election process get the information wrong sometimes,” he said. “Those organizations, candidates, political parties and political action committees should always refer voters to their county clerk or secretary of state’s website.”

This year, West Virginia’s primary election will be held May 14. Early, in-person voting will be held from May 1-11.

For more information on West Virginia’s upcoming primary election, visit GoVoteWV.com — a website administered by the West Virginia secretary of state’s office.

Morrisey Asks U.S. Supreme Court To Hear Transgender Athlete Ban

The Supreme Court last year declined to take the case when Morrisey asked.

West Virginia’s attorney general will again ask the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the state’s ban on transgender student athletes.

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said Wednesday he’d ask the justices to consider BPJ vs. West Virginia State Board of Education.

The Supreme Court last year declined to take the case when Morrisey asked. That was before the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled that the law, House Bill 3293, violated Title IX protections for gender equality in school sports.

There is no guarantee the justices will be any more inclined to hear the case now.

“We will be filing, over the next month, and we’re going to make sure we time our filing to maximize the chance this case is going to be heard, and most importantly, that we will win,” he said.

Morrisey, who’s running for governor in the Republican primary, appeared with former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines, who’s become a national figure in the opposition to transgender women and girls participating in school sports.

The campaigns of Morrisey and another Republican candidate, Chris Miller, have been airing competing advertisements declaring each candidate has the stronger position against transgender student athletes.

Another Republican rival, Secretary of State Mac Warner, said Wednesday that Morrisey should step away from the case because he lost the appeal to the Fourth Circuit.

“He should voluntarily step aside and allow competent legal counsel to defend the West Virginia law that was overwhelmingly passed by the WV Legislature and signed by Governor Justice,” Warner said.

Meanwhile, the 13-year-old student in Harrison County, Becky Pepper Jackson, continues to participate on her school’s track team.

Jack Jarvis, communications director for Fairness West Virginia, said Morrisey’s statements about transgender youth contribute to a hostile environment with increased harassment, bullying and discrimination.

“Transgender women are women, period,” Jarvis said. “If you want to support women, you need to support all women. Becky and all of the other trans youth across our state deserve to fully participate in school activities and athletic events.”

Find Your Sample Ballot With New Virtual Tool

A new online tool shows residents the candidates and measures they can vote on in this year’s primary election in advance, so that they can take more time to consider their decisions.

Based on address and district information, a new online tool provides West Virginia residents with a sample ballot for this year’s primary election so they can prepare to make voting decisions in advance.

The Sample Ballot Lookup Tool was launched Tuesday by West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner. In a press release, Warner said he hopes the tool will allow residents to make more informed decisions.

“We are asking voters to take a little time to educate themselves before they go to vote to learn more about the candidates and the initiatives that will be on their ballot,” he said. “The online search tool for Sample Ballots is safe and accurate to use.”

This year, West Virginia’s primary election will be held May 14, with in-person early voting beginning May 1.

The deadline to register to vote in the primary election is April 23.

To view your sample ballot, visit the Secretary of State’s Sample Ballot Lookup Tool online.

For more information on registering to vote in West Virginia, visit the Secretary of State’s website.

Campaign Donors In Primary Race For Governor Spark Voter Attention

There’s more to glean from a candidate’s campaign financial reports than the amount of money raised. Who and where the contributions come from can spark voter alerts.

There’s more to glean from a candidate’s campaign financial reports than the amount of money raised. Who and where the contributions come from can be a reason for voter alerts.

Third quarter campaign finance reports in the West Virginia governor’s race show the four leading candidates, all Republican, raised nearly $1.2 million combined. Attorney General Patrick Morrisey accounted for nearly half that amount.

Marybeth Beller, Marshall University associate professor of Political Science, looked closely at in-state versus out-of-state contributions. She noted that of the two front-runners, 57 percent of Del. Moore Capito’s donations came from West Virginia donors, while 83 percent of Morrisey’s donors come from out-of-state. Beller said voters should pay attention to that.

“Voters need to really be wary, no matter who the candidate is, if the bulk of that candidate’s support is coming from outside the state,” Beller said. “What did those out-of-state interests have? And what are they trying to get from the gubernatorial position in West Virginia?”

The quarterly reports list donors that have given contributions under $250. Each donation is counted separately, creating multiple donations from single sources.

Beller noted that among the four leading candidates, businessman Chris Miller had 78 donations under $250, with just four multiple donations.

Secretary of State Mac Warner listed 281 individuals donating under $250 with 17 multiples. Capito had 322 individual donations with 25 multiple donors.

Morrisey reported 21,990 individual donations, with most from donors that contributed small amounts multiple times. Beller said this counting system can skew campaign ads.

“Morrisey can say in his ads that he has nearly 22,000 people contribute individual donations,” Beller said. “What would be misleading is for the audience to think that that meant they were individual donors. Most of those are recurring donations.”

Beller said that unlike his competitors, where most contributors list their address and occupation, the bulk of Morrisey’s contributors are unidentified.

“I would urge the Secretary of State’s office to really investigate those disclosures,” Beller said. “I think the public deserves to know where these contributions are coming from for all of the candidates.”

Preventing Election Fraud In W.Va.

The Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, is a bipartisan, multi-state partnership aimed at helping states maintain accurate voter rolls. This past March, Secretary of State Mac Warner withdrew West Virginia from ERIC, citing partisan influences. Last month, Warner announced West Virginia was making new data-sharing state partnerships to prevent election fraud.

Warner said more than half of any voter duplications happen in neighboring states. He has West Virginia now joining in voter data-sharing agreements with Ohio and Virginia along with Florida. He said the goal is a 50-state membership.

“We’ll get to the broader states, a larger number of states over time,” Warner said. “You can see, we started with Virginia and now we’ll be working with Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Maryland. Again, this is the very beginning.”

Those states are three of the 24 states that currently belong to ERIC.

Wisconsin Election Commission Commissioner, former ERIC Chair, and current board member, Meagan Wolfe said the consortium offers highly secure, bipartisan state voter rolls data sharing that produces election safeguarding results.

“There have been more than a million voter records that have either been updated, updated with a new address, or deactivated where they’re no longer on Wisconsin rolls, because of information that we received from ERIC,” Wolfe said. “ERIC is also the only tool that allows us to see if somebody has committed some type of voter fraud, and voted in two different states.”

Warner said he withdrew West Virginia from ERIC because the system was stagnating.

“They were stuck,” he said. “There were 30 or 31 states, and a number of states, including the big one like California that I think were prohibited by their state law from entering into the ERIC type program. There’s nothing that prevents any of the states from getting into memorandums of agreement with individual states.”

Wolfe said ERIC is not stagnant, but a dynamic data sharing system.

“It’s not a one-time thing,” she said. “You can’t just get one ERIC report.

It’s something where you need to be constantly getting that data and incorporating it into your process, into your statewide voter registration database.”

With a handful of Republican states, including West Virginia, pulling out of the consortium in 2023, ERIC has become a national political football. Warner said the other reason West Virginia quit ERIC was suspected partisanship from ex-officio, non-voting, advisory ERIC board members.

“When they didn’t remove themselves or the board didn’t address that issue, then it showed the partisanship nature of the entire thing and just led to what is, if not the reality, at least the perception of partisanship,” Warner said.

Wolfe said Warner’s assertion of ERIC partisanship is part of a misinformation and rumor mill.

“It is not truthful information about what ERIC is, the results of information that’s just not accurate,” Wolfe said. “Based on concerns from other states, the ERIC membership all agreed to amend our membership process, and we no longer have any of those advisory seats. The voting states are made up of both Republicans and Democrats from across the country.”

Wolfe said creating a new state-to-state voter data sharing system will not be a simple task.

“Without Eric, there’s not the ability to be able to exchange that data in a way that is as effective or as secure, or that is allowed under state laws,” Wolfe said. “I would agree that it’s not a simple task, certainly to create some sort of alternate process.”

Warner said a 50-state solution is needed to address the real problems that will increase confidence in West Virginia’s elections. Several of the states that recently left ERIC have state leaders that aspire to higher office, including gubernatorial candidate Warner, who says that is not the reason.

“It’s a state issue, not a political aspiration issue,” Warner said.

Friendships Across Political Divides And Preventing Election Fraud On This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, Randy Yohe spoke with Secretary of State Mac Warner and ERIC past chair and current board member Meghan Wolfe about the best ways to keep the state’s and the nation’s voter rolls clean.

On this West Virginia Morning, the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, is a bipartisan multi-state partnership aimed at helping states maintain accurate voter rolls. This past March, Secretary of State Mac Warner withdrew West Virginia from ERIC, citing partisan influences. Last month, Warner announced West Virginia was making new data sharing state partnerships to prevent election fraud.

Randy Yohe spoke with Secretary Warner and ERIC past chair and current board member Meghan Wolfe about the best ways to keep the state’s and the nation’s voter rolls clean.

Also, in this show, lots of people in the U.S. live in a bubble. The friends and family in their echo chamber think and believe just like they do. About four in 10 registered voters in America say they don’t have a close friend who supports the opposing political party or candidate.

On the latest Us & Them podcast, host Trey Kay learns how two childhood friends keep their relationship going across the divide. Brian Griffin and Lynn Angell talk regularly and say they learn a lot from their exchanges.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Caroline MacGregor produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning