CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is tying FEMA grants for states to their post-election canvassing efforts.
The state has received a directive from the federal government requiring counties canvass five percent of ballots cast in elections or risk seeing FEMA grant amounts reduced by 20 percent.
West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner notified the State Election Commission Friday he plans to put a new policy in place for county clerks and post-election canvassing.
Warner’s Chief of Staff Deak Kersey explained to the commission that state law requires clerks and the county’s Board of Canvassers, the county commission, to canvass votes in three percent of a county’s precincts. Kersey said now county officials will have to make sure that three percent covers at least five percent of ballots cast. He said, if not, more precincts will have to be canvassed.
“Our intention here is to issue an order to the county clerks to ensure that the percentage of ballots counted is greater than five percent rather than three percent of the precincts,” Kersey told the SEC at Friday’s meeting.
Canvassing is a process that happens in every county after the election. The Board of Canvassers randomly chooses some precincts and check the ballots with the results to make sure they match.
County clerks have already been notified of the coming change. Kersey said the Secretary of State’s Office has heard no concerns so far.
“There’s a possibility that they’re already doing more than five percent (of ballots). What we don’t want to do is to get into a scenario where a county selects precincts less than 5 percent of the ballots which would disqualify the state from receiving up to 20 percent of the funds available in the 2026 Homeland Security program,” Kersey said.
Kersey said many of the county clerks they heard from were glad about getting a uniform policy from the Secretary of State’s Office.
Kersey said Kanawha County said, “‘It’s a good thing. Uniformity is good and counting more paper is always the best way to audit electronic results,'” which is exactly what we’ll be doing.”
Kersey said the directive requires canvassing in at last one federal race and one other race. He said West Virginia counties already exceed that requirement because votes in all races are part of the canvass.
Candidate removed
The SEC did vote during Friday’s meeting to remove Constitution Party candidate Glendon Watts from the General Election ballot. He was running for the 5th District State Senate seat. He was removed because he lives in Wayne County which is already represented in the 5th District by Sen. Scott Fuller, R-Wayne.
Kersey said the complaint was filed by state Republican Party Chairman Josh Holstein. He said Watts said he didn’t know about the prohibition. He decided not to challenge the SEC.
The two remaining candidates in the that race, Republican nominee Chris Miller and Democrat Party nominee Duron Jackson, both live in Cabell County.