Counties throughout W.Va. must clean up their voter registration rolls

Election officials in Lincoln County need to clear out their voting rolls. And so do officials in several other counties in West Virginia.

Last week, the secretary of state's office released voter registration information for the primary election one week from today. The information included the total number of registered voters and the number of registered voters based on party affiliation.

We at The Herald-Dispatch compared the number of registered voters in each county with the number of people of voting age in 2006 as estimated by the Census Bureau. The result showed that Lincoln County has 19,521 registered voters but only 17,371 people of voting age. Or you could say 112.4 percent of people who are eligible to vote are registered to vote.

That sounds like an invitation to vote fraud. But consider this: 13 other West Virginia counties have voter registration rates of 90 percent or more. Those counties are Boone, Logan, Mingo, Wetzel, Jackson, Marion, Tucker, Wyoming, Ohio, Wirt, Hancock, Mason and Calhoun.

For comparison, Cabell County had 76.9 percent registration and Wayne County had 87.3 percent. According to the Census Bureau, nationwide about 66 percent of the adult population was registered to vote for the 2004 general election.

It's either too much trouble to remove names from the voting rolls, or else state and federal election laws prevent county election officials from doing so. Either way, the present situation only invites cynicism and suspicion about the honesty of West Virginia elections.

Among other findings when The Herald-Dispatch analyzed the registration numbers: Counties with the highest population growth rates tend to have the highest percentage of voters declaring themselves independents. The counties with the highest percentages of independents are Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Mineral and Monongalia.

Despite the surge in numbers of independent voters, don't expect them to be a significant force in state politics anytime soon. Democrats in West Virginia still outnumber independents 6.4 to 1. And they still are 56.2 percent of the electorate. It will take decades or a political catastrophe on the scale of the Great Depression for their dominance in the state to change.

Related Content:

WV Voter Registration by County
WV Voter Registration Maps