CHARLESTON — Don Blankenship officially filed to run on the ballot for U.S. Senate on the Constitution Party.
Blankenship previously ran on the Republican Party but lost in the primary election to Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.
"Mr. Blankenship filed his papers yesterday," Marc Williams, an attorney for the Secretary of State's Office, said in an interview with The West Virginia Record. "It was the official filing. He had been submitting some of the signatures to us in advance of actually filing the petition so we could start the process of verification."
Marc Williams
Williams said essentially the Secretary of State's Office needs to do two things: review the signatures to determine if Blankenship has enough qualifying signatures and decide on whether or not the "sore loser" provision holds up.
"He would have to submit the equivalent of one percent of the voters in the last election for the office that he's seeking," Williams said. "That is about 6,600. He has submitted about 11,000 signatures and we're going through the process of verifying those."
Williams said in order to be qualified voters, those who signed the petition have to be registered voters and the Secretary of State's Office has to be able to verify the identity based on the information they provided.
"So far, between 50 and 60 percent are qualified voters," Williams said. "It's a little time consuming because we're making every effort to make sure they're qualified voters or not. We will see if he's got enough signatures."
Williams said since Blankenship ran on the Republican Party ticket in the primary and is now trying to run on the Constitution Party for the same office in the general, the provision might prohibit him from being on the ballot.
"West Virginia Code has several provisions that impact that," Williams said. "They state that if you were a candidate for an office in the primary and were not successful then you cannot switch parties and run for another party that requires you to get on the ballot through this petition process. The Constitution Party is not one of the recognized political parties in West Virginia."
Blankenship won in four counties in the primary—Mingo, Roane, Calhoun and Clay and received 27,153 votes.
WVGOP Chairperson Melody Potter said the voters spoke in the primary election and nominated Morrisey as the Republican nominee.
"We are working every day to help him beat Sen. Joe Manchin," Potter said in an interview with The West Virginia Record. "I’m not going to comment on candidates who have not been certified to appear on the ballot and are attempting to circumvent our state’s 'sore loser' law and bypass the will of West Virginia voters."
Blankenship said in a news release that once he is on the ballot, the people of West Virginia will have an opportunity to help him "end the erosion of their Constitutional rights."
"As the individual who played the single greatest individual role in re-establishing a two-party system in West Virginia, I will work hard to be sure neither of those two parties behaves like a Communist Party," Blankenship said in the news release.
Blankenship spent a year in federal prison after he was alleged to have willfully conspired to violate federal mine safety standards that caused the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion in April 2010.
Blankenship was the CEO of Massey Energy when the 29 miners were killed in the mine explosion. He reported to federal prison in May 2016 and was released a year later. He was required to spend a year in supervised release, which was over this past May.