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WEST VIRGINIA RECORD

Monday, April 29, 2024

Democrats are stuck with election law they passed themselves

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Some people will say one thing one moment, when it suits their purpose, and then they’ll say the exact opposite later, when that’s more advantageous.

They’ll insist that they’ve always had the view they’re currently expressing, deny they ever said or thought differently, and sound like they really believe their big lie.

Take the state law that stipulates how candidates are to be listed on election ballots. That law, passed by the state Legislature three decades ago, provides that the party whose presidential candidate received the most votes in West Virginia in the last national election shall have its candidates listed first in all races.


Passed in 1991 when Democrat Chuck Chambers (now U.S. District Judge Chuck Chambers) was speaker of the House of Delegates, the law favored Democrat candidates at the time. And Democrats had no problem with that.

“This policy has been in state code for the past 29 years, without objection from either political party or any elected official,” comments former state Republican Party Chairwoman Melody Potter. “Republican presidential candidates have won West Virginia every election since 2000, which positions them first on the ballot.

“Democrats had no problem with this policy from 2000 to 2010 when they held the majority,” she emphasizes, describing as hypocritical how these same Democrats “now object to the very law their party enacted 29 years ago, claiming that it is now unconstitutional. They have sued because it’s no longer politically advantageous for them.”

Last summer, a Democrat judge issued an injunction instructing the Secretary of State’s office to come up with a new way to determine candidate listing on ballots. Guess who the judge was. Yep, Chuck Chambers, the guy who got the law enacted in the first place. But that was then, and this is now.

Secretary of State Mac Warner appealed the order, and last week the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the listing law is constitutional.

Suck it up, Democrats. You did it to yourselves.

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