CHARLESTON – On Monday, February 3, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice signed into law Senate Bill 94, a bill to ensure that all voters in West Virginia are guaranteed access to the ballot box, at polling locations and when voting absentee.
All 33 West Virginia state Senators and all 93 Delegates in the House who were present voted in favor of this law. I wish to commend the governor and all of my fellow legislators for supporting this crucial legislation.
A vital guarantee of our democracy is the right to privately and independently cast and verify an election ballot. This right is not always afforded to people with disabilities, at either local polling places or when voting absentee.
Before this law and the procedures it created, many disabled voters would need the assistance of another person to exercise their franchise. Ensuring equal access to the ballot is fundamental to our democracy.
Yet voters with disabilities have been historically disenfranchised in absentee voting by the requirement to vote by paper ballot. I applaud all those who recognized the importance of equitable access to the voting process for all voters and the right to cast a private, independent ballot.
West Virginia has implemented an alternative absentee voting method that will allow those who cannot visually read the ballot to take advantage of this voting system if they wish to do so.
Prior to this law, visually impaired West Virginians could not independently and privately vote via absentee ballot. No alternative method to traditional paper ballots existed to allow those who could not visually read the ballot to vote independently.
A broad coalition of groups and individuals joined together to make this new system a reality. These include the West Virginia Minority Counsel, particularly Brian Skinner and Joe Altizer; the Joint Standing Committee on the Judiciary with Sarah Canterbury as Counsel; Disability Rights of West Virginia with Jeremiah Underhill, Legal Director, and Erin Snyder, Staff Attorney; the American Counsel of the Blind; Sheppard Mullin, an attorney representing voters with disabilities; the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs; and the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office.
I especially wish to thank the Secretary of State Mac Warner and Deak Kersey, his general counsel, for many hours of their hard work that turned a good idea into an effective law.
These groups represent a diverse range of political ideologies and life experiences but all of them knew this was the right thing to do to protect the rights of the most marginalized group of people in our society- those with disabilities.
This law and the procedures that follow it are already in place in time for the 2020 West Virginia primary season, and I have already been able to take advantage of the law to vote privately and securely for the first time since losing my eyesight more than 13 years ago.
While I prefer to vote in person, I wanted to vote privately for the first time in 14 years to show my fellow West Virginians with a disability that they have they have the ability to vote their conscience and to do it in complete privacy.
I am proud that West Virginia is the first state to do this. My hope is that this will inspire other states and the federal government to follow West Virginia’s lead.
This law is the most significant civil rights legislation to impact West Virginia since the Americans With Disabilities Act was made law 30 years ago. It is the great strike back against ableism and sharing the American dream with its most marginalized citizens.
Porterfield, a Republican, is from Mercer County and serves in the House of Delegates representing the 27th District, which covers portions of Mercer and Raleigh counties.