The county clerks of Kanawha and Cabell counties have been sued after they refused to accept online voter registrations from the Secretary of State's office.
The lawsuit was filed by Jamie Lynn Crofts, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union in West Virginia, and Charleston lawyer Anthony Majestro on behalf of Benjamin Sheridan, a House of Delegates candidate, and Abby Holmes, a Cabell County resident who tried to register online to vote.
Kanawha County Clerk Vera McCormick and Cabell County Clerk Karen Cole said last month that they were uncomfortable with the security provisions in West Virginia's voter registration website, which went online in October. Both clerks, once they received notification of an online voter registration, had been mailing papers out to the voter to complete before they would accept the registration.
The state's other 53 counties are accepting online voter registrations without any additional steps.
The petitioners argue that McCormick and Cole can't reject the online voter registrations without violating the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the West Virginia Constitution. They've asked the state Supreme Court for an emergency writ of mandamus to force the clerks to accept the online registrations.
The petition claims that the actions of the clerks "threaten the integrity of a statewide election."
But McCormick stands by her choice to refuse to accept the online voter registration until she was instructed to accept them by the Secretary of State in April.
"We didn't do anything wrong," McCormick said. "We did our job. We took an extra step there to protect our records and we're happy that we did."
McCormick said that everyone who registered online has been registered to vote in the May 10 primary, even if people did not send a card back with a signature.
McCormick added that she registered the online voters who did not provide a written signature at the request of the Secretary of State.
Cole could not be reached to find out if she registered every voter who attempted to register online.
Majestro, however, said that even if all the people who attempted to register online in time for the primary were approved, the goal is to make sure that Kanawha and Cabell counties open up their registration to the online format so people registering for the general election can use it as well.
"They will be registering to vote between now and November and should have the ease of registering to vote online," Majestro said.
Earlier in the year, both McCormick and Cole expressed concern that they couldn't tell who was registering to vote despite online voter registration providing more security checks than mail-in registration.
"These concerns are simply not strong enough to justify violating the equal protection rights of citizens in Cabell and Kanawha counties."
The petitioners are asking for a decision from the court before the May 10 primary.
Reach Daniel Desrochers at dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4886 or reach @drdesrochers on Twitter.