Voter ID Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Is It Possible To Talk Politics At The Dinner Table?

It’s another Thanksgiving with COVID-19, but this time, vaccinations allow many Americans to gather together and share a hug and a meal.

Us & Them host Trey Kay invites his ‘virtual dinner party’ guests back for an anniversary. It’s a tradition we began last year – bringing together a wide ranging group to talk occasionally about the hot topics of the day. We talk politics and the 2020 election as well as the issues of election reform that continue to reverberate. COVID vaccinations and masks present some honest conversation.

This year we’ll see what kind of common ground there is at the table. It seems the more the dinner party guests talk with each other, the more they learn something that can help them see things more clearly and connect on different levels.

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the CRC Foundation and the West Virginia Humanities Council.

Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond. You also can listen to Us & Them on WVPB Radio — tune in Thursday, Nov. 25, at 8 p.m., or listen to the encore presentation on Saturday, Nov. 27, at 3 p.m.

Host Trey Kay enjoying a “non-Thanksgiving” Thanksgiving meal at a virtual table with the Us & Them “Dinner Party” crew.

'Spread the Vote' Intiative Gives More Than Just ID's

After West Virginia’s voter ID law went into effect last year an organization focused on increasing voter registration and voter turnout launched a new initiative in the state to help people gain proper identification. Spread the Vote now operates in nine states, and aims not only to give people a chance to vote, but also a better chance in life.

Voting, getting a job, buying a house, flying, staying in a hotel — all require some official, legal form of identification. That requirement might not seem like a big deal to most people, but not everyone has an ID.

As West Virginia Spread the Vote director Peshka Calloway points out, there are many reasons someone might not have an official form of identification.

“We work with clients who have experienced house fires, we’re looking to work with clients who have lost their documents in floods,” Calloway explained, “because we’ve seen a significant amount of floods here in West Virginia.”

Spread the Vote, which launched in West Virginia earlier this year, recently began a new initiative aiming to help those without ID’s obtain the documents needed to get a federal ID.

The initiative is called Project ID. There are six chapters in West Virginia. Clients get help figuring out what documents they need, and are guided through each step to acquire those documents. Project ID pays for the whole process.

Calloway is passionate about the work. She said she lost important documents once herself.

“I’m a survivor of domestic violence. I left my abuser and left mine and my son’s vital documents behind. So I know the difficulty of navigating the bureaucracy of trying to prove who you are,” Calloway said.

But the passion doesn’t stop with Calloway. More than 20 volunteers are working across the state as part of Project ID.

Attendees of the Northern Panhandle launch party pose for a selfie.

One of those volunteers is Rosemary Ketchum, the Northern Panhandle chapter leader. Ketchum loves the tangible difference she’s able to make working with Project ID.

“You can literally quantify in numbers the change you’re making,” Ketchum said. “You can say ‘I ordered fifteen birth certificates, and I have twelve I.D.’S on their way.’ And that’s real change in people’s lives.”

Calloway explained, if someone hasn’t had an ID for a while, getting one can be life-changing.

“I have a man who hasn’t had a photo ID since 2013, think about that life. Right, it’s 2019. Think about all the years and all the barriers,” Calloway said. “He told me he had difficulty opening a bank account in his name. He can’t get a Greyhound bus pass without an ID. You know this life without it, people don’t think about it until they lose it.”

Project ID will be expanding with the launches of two new chapters in the coming weeks.

A chapter in Huntington begins work on May 25th, and the Beckley chapter is scheduled to launch on June 3rd.

West Virginia's Voter ID Law: Some Say It's A Balance, Others Say It's Not Needed At All

Having gone into effect at the beginning of this year, West Virginia’s new voter identification law sees its first statewide election during the May 8 primaries. While state legislators responsible for passing the law say it strikes a balance, experts opposed to such measures — here and elsewhere in the country — say it is a “solution in search of a problem.” Some organizations, though, are teaming with the Secretary of State’s office for public outreach programs to help educate voters about the law and what they need to bring with them to the polls.

The West Virginia Legislature passed the law during the 2016 regular session. Under the provisions of the new law, voters are required to show an acceptable form of ID to legally make their way to the polls. The aim, according to Republican leaders, was to prevent voter fraud while not burdening those who legitimately want to exercise their constitutional rights.

“It’s obviously always a balancing test — and what we did not want to do is, in enacting legislation to prevent fraud, to go so far that it was going to make it difficult for people who are legitimate voters to be able to cast their ballots,” said state Senate Judiciary chairman Charles Trump.

“We worked pretty hard on this legislation to try to strike what we felt was the appropriate balance in a way that would not unduly burden any legitimate registered voter in the exercise of his or her constitutional franchise,” Trump added.

Max Feldman of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law said strict photo ID laws in other states like Wisonsin, Georgia and Virginia are too tough. Studies by the Brennan Center show that as many as 11 percent of eligible voters in America do not have a photo issued government ID.

West Virginia’s law is much less restrictive, allowing for voters to present photo, as well as non-photo IDs to be eligible at the polls. There are also exceptions to the law, such as a poll worker knowing a voter or a person with proper ID verifying the identity of a voter they’ve known personally for more than 6 months.

Still, Feldman said the mere presumption of voter fraud is a scare tactic and is detrimental to the democratic process. He said a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud.

“To the extent this law was put in place in order to combat that type of problem and the rhetoric that’s used to justify the law is that in person voter fraud is a major problem in West Virginia — the reality is that’s not the case,” Feldman said.

With the law taking effect earlier this year, the Secretary of State’s office has been involved with other organizations for public education on the issue. The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia is among the groups involved in these efforts.

“There are a large number of types of identification that people can use. However — and this is one of our concerns — the mere presence of a voter ID law on the books can suppress votes,” said Joseph Cohen, executive director of the ACLU of West Virginia.

“Many voters don’t even try to go to the polls because they presume that only a driver’s license or some other photo I.D. that they don’t have is what’s required to vote,” Cohen added.

For more information on the Voter ID law, visit the Secretary of State’s website. Polls open for the 2018 primary Tuesday, May 8, at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m.

Acceptable Forms of Non-Photo Identification in West Virginia:

Voter registration card
Medicare card or Social Security card
Birth certificate
WV hunting or fishing license
WV SNAP ID card
WV TANF program ID card
WV Medicaid ID card
Bank or debit card Utility bill or bank statement issued within six months of the date of the election
Health insurance card issued to the voter

Acceptable Forms of Photo Identification in West Virginia:

WV driver’s license or other WV ID card issued by the DMV
Driver’s license issued by another state
U.S. passport or passport card
Military ID card issued by the U.S.
U.S. or WV Government employee ID card
Student ID card
A concealed carry (pistol/revolver) permit

Three exceptions to the law are applicable under state law. Additional details can be found here on the Secretary of State’s website.

West Virginia Voter Identification Law Takes Effect

Starting this year, West Virginians must show identification before they can vote in an election.

A law passed by the Legislature last year took effect Monday. For any election, voters in West Virginia have to present a valid form of ID or have another registered voter vouch for them under oath.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that the law defines 18 documents that constitute a valid identification, including any state or federal government-issued ID card, even if it does not contain a photograph. Those can include driver’s licenses, passports, Social Security cards, student IDs, and Medicaid or Medicare cards.

Some nongovernment documents also can be used, including a bank card or statement.

Part of the law that sets up automatic voter registration at the Division of Motor Vehicles isn’t set to begin until July 2019.

Subcommittee Reaches Compromise on Voter ID Bill

A House Judiciary Subcommittee reconsidered a bill Thursday that barely made it through the legislative process on the final night of the 2016 session.

That bill required West Virginians to bring some form of identification with them when they go to cast a ballot at their polling place. It also set up an automatic voter registration process between the Secretary of the State’s office and the Division of Motor Vehicles.

Delegates initially intended to gut parts of that law altogether this year, but have since worked on a compromise.

As introduced, House Bill 2781 got rid of the automatic voter registration system altogether and removed a large number of the allowable forms of ID, including a health insurance card, birth certificate, and several others. Those two provisions were pushed by Democratic members of the Legislature during the 2016 session.

Thursday morning, a House Judiciary subcommittee, led by Republican Delegate Mark Zatezelo of Hancock County, met to negotiate the bill’s provisions. The subcommittee’s version of the bill puts all of the ID options back in, and it also reinstates the required automatic voter registration system.

Zatezelo says, however, their bill pushes back the effective date one full year.

“We want to make sure the DMV is ready for July 1, 2019,” Zatezelo noted, “And so, we will put into this bill [a] proviso that they be ready with their new software by July 1, 2018. That gives them a year to work all the bugs out and do that type of thing; we feel it’s fair.”

Zatezelo also says the bill makes it clear that if someone doesn’t want to register to vote when they go to the DMV, their information won’t automatically be sent to the Secretary of State’s office.

The single Democrat on the Judiciary subcommittee is Delegate Chad Lovejoy of Cabell County. He says he’s very pleased with the compromised version of the bill.

“I think the bill has been greatly enhanced by the work of the subcommittee,” Lovejoy said, “You know, as we approached it, there were two kind of major concerns with bringing it back up. One was changing the IDs, the list of IDs that were negotiated last year as part of the legislation, and the second, were, what could be perceived as attempts to roll back the automatic voter registration.”

Lovejoy says he anticipates wide support from his party when this bill comes to the floor. House Bill 2781 will now go before the full Judiciary committee for further consideration.

Tomblin Signs Voter ID, Automatic Voter Registration Bill

Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has signed a bill that requires voters to show some form of identification before casting a ballot at his or her polling place as well as creates an an automatic voter registration process system.

The bill was the result of a conference committee on the final night of the session that negotiated an expanded list of the forms of identification. They include:

Any government issued ID or permit, with or without a photo, including a voter registration card
Any college or high school issued ID
A health insurance card
A utility bill
A bank card or bank statement
Verification of identification by another adult who has known the voter for at least 6 months, including a poll worker

The bill also requires the Secretary of State’s Office to work with the Division of Motor Vehicles to create an automatic voter registration system.
Currently, the DMV has an opt in voter registration policy that allows West Virginian to register to vote while applying for or renewing a license. The change would require West Virginians to opt out of the registration process.

On the final night of the session, Tomblin said he did not believe the requirement to provide some type of identification would place any additional burden on West Virginia voters.

The bill takes effect January 1, 2018.