CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Two county clerks in West Virginia are refusing to accept online voter registrations because they’re uncomfortable with security provisions in the state’s voter registration website.
Kanawha County Clerk Vera McCormick and Cabell County Clerk Karen Cole will not accept applications through the website until changes are made, The Charleston Gazette-Mail (https://bit.ly/1VsdBNs) reported.
Both clerks have objected to a process that requires registrants to answer a series of questions. During the application process, if the answer to any of the questions isn’t what it should be, the process stops. Cole and McCormick said that they couldn’t process registrations because they didn’t have the answers to those questions.
The two are also concerned that the registration doesn’t require a physical signature.
“Until I know that it is truly accurate and it is truly nobody trying to change somebody else’s record, I’m just not comfortable with it,” Cole said.
To secure the identity of a person, the online process requires applications to enter the last four digits of their Social Security number and their driver’s license number.
Secretary of State of West Virginia Natalie Tennant said that about 1,300 potential voters have had their applications declined by Cole’s office. McCormick said that in Kanawha County, about 30 to 40 voters per day have been declined.
Cole and McCormick said that many of the online registrants that were declined have subsequently completed a paper form of the registration.
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Information from: The Charleston Gazette-Mail, https://wvgazettemail.com.
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