WEST virginia legislature
2024 regular session
Committee Substitute
for
Senate Bill 622
By Senators Tarr and Woodrum
[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary; reported January 10, 2024]
A BILL to amend and reenact §3-2-25 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to systemic purging program and additional systematic confirmation procedure for the removal of ineligible voters from active voter rolls; removing obsolete reference to combined voter registration and licensing fund; decreasing the period of voting inactivity from four to two years; and providing an internal effective date.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
(b) The Secretary of State shall provide for the comparison of data records of all counties. The Secretary of State shall, based on the comparison, prepare a list for each county which shall include the voter registration record for each voter shown on that county's list who appears to have registered or to have updated a voter registration in another county at a subsequent date. The resulting lists shall be returned to the appropriate county and the clerk of the county commission shall proceed with the confirmation procedure for those voters as prescribed in section twenty-six of this article §3-2-26 of this code.
(c) The Secretary of State may provide for the comparison of data records of counties with the data records of the Division of Motor Vehicles, the registrar of vital statistics, and with the data records of any other state agency which maintains records of residents of the state, if the procedure is practical and the agency agrees to participate. Any resulting information regarding potentially ineligible voters shall be returned to the appropriate county and the clerk of the county commission shall proceed with the confirmation procedure as prescribed in section twenty-six of this article §3-2-26 of this code.
(d) The records of all voters not identified pursuant to the procedures set forth in subsections (b) and (c) of this section shall be combined for comparison with United States Postal Service change of address information, as described in section 8(c)(A) of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (42 U. S. C.§1973gg, et seq.). The Secretary of State shall contract with an authorized vendor of the United States Postal Service to perform the comparison. The cost of the change of address comparison procedure shall be paid for from the combined voter registration and licensing fund established in section twelve of this article and the cost of the confirmation notices, labels, and postage shall be paid for by the counties.
(e) The Secretary of State shall return to each county the identified matches of the county voter registration records and the postal service change of address records.
(1) When the change of address information indicates the voter has moved to a new address within the county, the clerk of the county commission shall enter the new address on the voter record and assign the proper precinct.
(2) The clerk of the county commission shall then mail to each voter who appears to have moved from the residence address shown on the registration records a confirmation notice pursuant to section twenty-six of this article §3-2-26 of this code and of section 8(d)(2) of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (42 U. S. C.§1973gg, et seq.). The notice shall be mailed, no later than December 31, to the new address provided by the postal service records or to the old address if a new address is not available.
(f) The clerk of the county commission shall indicate in the statewide voter registration database the name and address of each voter to whom a confirmation notice was mailed and the date on which the notice was mailed.
(g) Upon receipt of any response or returned mailing sent pursuant to the provisions of subsection (e) of this section, the clerk shall immediately enter the date and type of response received in the statewide voter registration database and shall then proceed in accordance with the provisions of section twenty-six of this article §3-2-26 of this code.
(h) For purposes of complying with the record keeping and public inspection requirements of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (42 U. S. C.§1973gg, et seq.), and with the provisions of section twenty-seven of this article §3-2-27 of this code, the public inspection lists shall be maintained either (1) in printed form kept in a binder prepared for such purpose and available for public inspection during regular business hours at the office of the clerk of the county commission, or (2) in read-only data format available for public inspection on computer terminals set aside and available for regular use by the general public. Information concerning whether or not each person has responded to the notice shall be entered into the statewide voter registration database upon receipt and shall be available for public inspection as of the date the information is received.
(i) Any voter to whom a confirmation notice was mailed pursuant to the provisions of subsection (e) of this section who fails to respond to the notice, or to update his or her voter registration address by February 1 immediately following the completion of the program, shall be designated inactive in the statewide voter registration database. Any voter designated inactive shall be required to affirm his or her current residence address on a form prescribed by the Secretary of State, upon appearing at the polls to vote.
(j) In addition to the preceding purging procedures, all counties using the change of address information of the United States Postal Service shall also, once each four years during the period established for systematic purging in the year following a presidential election year, conduct the same procedure by mailing a confirmation notice to those persons not identified as potentially ineligible through the change of address comparison procedure but who have not updated their voter registration records and have not voted in any election during the preceding four two calendar years. The purpose of this additional systematic confirmation procedure shall be to identify those voters who may have moved without filing a forwarding address, moved with a forwarding address under another name, died in a another county or state so that the certificate of death was not returned to the clerk of the county commission, or who otherwise have become ineligible.