ENROLLED
Senate Bill No. 339
(By Senators Williams and White)
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[Passed March 9, 2010; in effect ninety days from passage.]
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AN ACT to amend and reenact §3-2-4a of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to statewide voter registration
list maintenance; and making a technical correction to that
statute.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §3-2-4a of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 2. REGISTRATION OF VOTERS.
§3-2-4a. Statewide voter registration list.
(a) The Secretary of State shall implement and maintain a
single, official, statewide, centralized, interactive computerized
voter registration list of every legally registered voter in the
state, which shall include the following:
(1) The computerized list shall serve as the single system for
storing and managing the official list of registered voters throughout the state.
(2) The computerized list shall contain the name, registration
information and voter history of every legally registered voter in
the state.
(3) Under the computerized list, the Secretary of State shall
assign a unique identifier to each legally registered voter in the
state.
(4) The computerized list shall be coordinated with other
agency databases within the state;
including, but not limited to,
the vital statistics database maintained by the Department of
Health and Human Resources. The Department of Health and Human
Resources by January 31st of each calendar year shall provide to
each county clerk a list from this database of all decedents in
that county in the preceding year
and shall provide to the
Secretary of State the list of all decedents in the state in the
preceding year.
(5) The Secretary of State and any clerk of the county
commission may obtain immediate electronic access to the
information contained in the computerized list.
(6) The clerk of the county commission shall electronically
enter voter registration information into the computerized list on
an expedited basis at the time the information is provided to the
clerk.
(7) The Secretary of State shall provide necessary support to
enable every clerk of the county commission in the state to enter information as described in subdivision (6) of this subsection.
(8) The computerized list shall serve as the official voter
registration list for conducting all elections in the state.
(b) The Secretary of State or any clerk of a county commission
shall perform maintenance with respect to the computerized list on
a regular basis as follows:
(1) If an individual is to be removed from the computerized
list, he or she shall be removed in accordance with the provisions
of 42 U.S.C. §1973gg, et seq., the National Voter Registration Act
of 1993.
(2) The Secretary of State shall coordinate the computerized
list with state agency records and remove the names of individuals
who are not qualified to vote because of felony status or death:
Provided, That no state agency may withhold information regarding
a voter's status as deceased or as a felon unless ordered by a
court of law:
Provided further,
the Secretary of State shall, in
each calendar year, certify that the removal of individuals who are
not qualified to vote because of a felony conviction as provided in
section two of this article or death
is completed at least 30 days
preceding the date of any primary election
.
(c) The list maintenance performed under subsection (b) of
this section shall be conducted in a manner that ensures that:
(1) The name of each registered voter appears in the
computerized list;
(2) Only voters who are not registered or who are not eligible to vote are removed from the computerized list;
(3) Duplicate names are eliminated from the computerized list;
(4) Deceased individuals names are eliminated from the
computerized list.
(d) The Secretary of State and the clerks of all county
commissions shall provide adequate technological security measures
to prevent the unauthorized access to the computerized list
established under this section.
(e) The Secretary of State shall ensure that voter
registration records in the state are accurate and updated
regularly, including the following:
(1) A system of file maintenance that makes a reasonable
effort to remove registrants who are ineligible to vote from the
official list of eligible voters. Under the system, consistent
with 42 U.S.C. §1973gg, et seq., registrants who have not
responded to a notice sent pursuant to section twenty six, article
two of this chapter and who have not voted in two consecutive
general elections for federal office shall be removed from the
official list of eligible voters, except that no registrant may be
removed solely by reason of a failure to vote; and
(2) Safeguards to ensure that eligible voters are not removed
in error from the official list of eligible voters.
(f) Applications for voter registration may only be accepted
when the following information is provided:
(1) Except as provided in subdivision (2) of this subsection and notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, an
application for voter registration may not be accepted or processed
unless the application includes:
(A) In the case of an applicant who has been issued a current
and valid driver's license, the applicant's driver's license
number;
(B) In the case of an applicant who has been issued an
identification card by the Division of Motor Vehicles, the
applicant's identification number; or
(C) In the case of any other applicant, the last four digits
of the applicant's social security number; and
(2) If an applicant for voter registration has not been issued
a current and valid driver's license, Division of Motor Vehicles'
identification card or a social security number, the Secretary of
State shall assign the applicant a number which will serve to
identify the applicant for voter registration purposes. To the
extent that the state has a computerized list in effect under this
section and the list assigns unique identifying numbers to
registrants, the number assigned under this section shall be the
unique identifying number assigned under the list.
(g) The Secretary of State and the Commissioner of the
Division of Motor Vehicles shall enter into an agreement to match
and transfer applicable information in the database of the
statewide voter registration system with information in the
database of the Division of Motor Vehicles to the extent required to enable each official to verify the accuracy of the information
provided on applications for voter registration.
(h) The Commissioner of the Division of Motor Vehicles shall
enter into an agreement with the Commissioner of Social Security
under 42 U.S.C. §301, et seq., the Social Security Act. All fees
associated with this agreement shall be paid for from moneys in the
fund created under section twelve, article two of this chapter.
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