The county clerks of two of West Virginia's largest counties are refusing to accept online voter registrations, instead mailing would-be voters a paper form that must be returned before registration is complete and delaying the registration of thousands of potential voters.
Kanawha County Clerk Vera McCormick and Cabell County Clerk Karen Cole said they are uncomfortable with the security provisions in West Virginia's 6-month-old online voter registration website and would not accept applications through the website until changes are made.
Clerks for every one of West Virginia's 53 other counties have been accepting online voter registration since it launched in October, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant said.
In Cabell County, about 1,300 potential voters have been declined by Cole's office, Tennant said. In Kanawha County, it's been an average of 30 to 40 voters per day, McCormick said, which would mean about 6,000 declines.
Statewide, about 18,000 people have registered to vote online in the past six months, Tennant said.
Both county clerks said the vast majority of declined online registrants had subsequently completed the process on paper after being sent pre-stamped return envelopes. However, the April 19 deadline to register in time for the May 10 primary election is looming, and citizens could be caught in the middle if an online application is denied close to the deadline.
"We just received notice that you have applied to vote, make changes to, or update your current voter registration record in Cabell County, through the secretary of state's website," Cole's form letter says. "Unfortunately this website does not provide the information that is required, by law, to be provided to this office in order to process a voter application."
Tennant said that is incorrect and that her office has provided additional information to Cole. She said the 2013 law authorizing online voter registration in West Virginia allows county clerks to opt out, but that Cole and McCormick aren't being forthright in their reasons for doing so.
"These clerks are choosing not to use the system when 53 other counties are using it," Tennant said. "They need to be up front and make a statement to the citizens of their counties why they are not accepting voter registration online."
To register online, a voter must have a driver's license or an ID card from the West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles.
The secretary of state's online registration form then pulls the person's signature, which is on file with the DMV, and sends the application and the signature to the proper county clerk.
Cole, a Democrat, and McCormick, a Republican, have several objections to the way the system works.
The very first step in the online registration process requires an applicant to answer four questions: Are you a U.S. citizen or West Virginia resident? Will you be at least 18 years old by the next election? Are you under conviction for a felony? Has a court judged you incompetent?
If the answer to any of those questions is not what it should be, the process stops right there - the application cannot move forward.
Cole and McCormick said that they could not process online registrations because they did not have the answers to those questions - even though the answers to those questions must be the same for any application to even reach the county clerk.
Tennant, also a Democrat, said her office had since made that information available to the county clerks, but Cole said it was not in the proper format.
Both county clerks also are concerned that the online voter registration form does not require a physical signature.
When a person goes to vote, a poll worker matches their signature with the one on file. There is still a signature on file for online registrants - the one from the DMV - but Cole and McCormick said that isn't good enough.
"You don't sign anywhere, you just type in your name," Cole said of the online process. "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."
"We've got to protect our voters and our citizens," McCormick said, "and I don't know who's sitting there behind the keyboard."
There are at least two security measures in place to ensure the identity of online voter registrants: A registrant must enter the last four digits of his or her Social Security number and their driver's license number. That's stricter than voter registration by mail, which requires only one of those two numbers.
McCormick and Cole said they were unaware that online registration required both numbers.
McCormick said that might have been a recent change, but Tennant's office said the online system has always required both numbers.
There are 31 states that have some form of online voter registration, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Almost all of them use a system similar to the one in West Virginia, with information submitted online matched against information already in DMV databases.
"The signature already on record with the state becomes the signature on record for voting," the NCSL writes. "When the information does not match, the application is sent to officials for further review."
McCormick and Cole said they will continue to decline online applications until changes are made.
"We would have to all sit down together with some legal representation so that they can tell us, 'This is OK, you're covered,' " Cole said. "Our attorneys are saying, " 'No, you're not.' "
Reach David Gutman at david.gutman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5119 or follow @davidlgutman on Twitter.