TUCKER COUNTY, W.Va. — County clerks across the Mountain State are at the Canaan Valley Resort in Tucker County for the three-day County Clerks Election Training Conference.
One of the many topics set to be covered during the conference is President Donald Trump’s executive order that may affect the state’s May Primary Elections in 2026.
The executive order prohibits the use of voting systems in the United States that use bar codes and QR codes to count votes. All 55 of West Virginia’s counties use these machines on Election Day.
Secretary of State Kris Warner said earlier in the month that the state was not certain if they would have to ditch their current system
Harrison County Clerk John Spires says, for now, his crew is still just discussing potential changes, but they’ll be ready to adapt as needed.
“At this point, it’s just conversation, but that’s what we do. We have to keep on our toes. We need to follow the law, whatever that law is,” Spires said. “We’re always ready to pivot if we need to. We have discussed it, so we have contingencies in place if that should happen.”
According to Warner, the commissioner of the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) was in attendance for the conference on Tuesday, and West Virginia will be following their guidance on what to do next.
“Our legislature has chosen to follow the EAC, and they would have to de-certify our machines before we would take those machines offline,” Warner said Tuesday on MetroNews “Talkline.”
If the state was forced to go away from their current system and use paper ballots, Spires says there would be likely be a big gap to fill.
“A main concern would be the manpower. That much more that you switch from machines to people, you need more people, especially to execute things at the same speed and time. Obviously, accuracy is the most important,” Spires said.
Putnam County Clerk Brian Wood says if the state can’t use any scanners, citizens can expect delays in accessing results.
“If we’re not allowed to use our scanning portion of the system and we go totally to human interaction — with optical scan and paper ballots coming back and trying to hand count that — we may be days or weeks when it comes to getting those results just because it takes so long to do so,” Wood said.