CHARLESTON – A Senate resolution would create an amendment to the state Constitution providing that only West Virginia citizens who are United States citizens are qualified to vote in elections.
Senate President Craig Blair (R-Berkeley) sponsored and introduced the resolution January 22.
“Most people assume that in order to vote in the United States, a person must be a citizen of the United States,” Blair told The West Virginia Record. “However, that isn’t always the case.
Pushkin
| File photo
“Liberal cities like San Francisco and New York are allowing non-citizens to vote.”
Blair said federal law requires citizenship to vote in a federal election, but the law does not apply to state and local elections.
“Unless our West Virginia constitution specifically states that only citizens can vote, the possibility of non-citizens legally voting exists,” he told The Record. “So, we have proposed a Constitutional Amendment that will ensure that only citizens can vote in elections in West Virginia.
“Only citizens of the United States and West Virginia should be voting in West Virginia elections.”
The chairman of the state Democratic Party said the resolution and amendment aren't needed.
“Senator Blair’s resolution is already West Virginia law and is therefore superfluous," Mike Pushkin, who also is a member of the House of Delegates, told The Record. "§3-2-2 of the West Virginia code reads, ‘Any person who possesses the constitutional qualifications for voting may register to vote. To be qualified, a person must be a citizen of the United States and a legal resident of West Virginia and of the county where he or she is applying to register.’
"Clearly the only reason Senator Blair would sponsor such a resolution is that he believes Secretary of State Mac Warner is not adequately enforcing existing West Virginia law.”
State Sen. Mike Stuart (R-Kanawha) is a co-sponsor of the resolution.
“Voting should be exclusively the fundamental right of actual citizens of the United States,” Stuart, a former U.S. Attorney who is running for state Attorney General, told The Record. “The failure of the Biden Administration to secure the southern border has caused an illegal invasion of the nation.
“While I support legal immigration, no one likes line skippers at Disney World or the border. Legal citizens who are here pursuant to our laws should have the right to vote – no one else.
“As an American citizen, I don’t vote in other countries elections, and they shouldn’t vote in ours.”
The body of the resolution says it would proposing an amendment to section one, article IV of the state Constitution relating to the right to vote in elections held in West Virginia.
It also says this would be Amendment 1 on the 2024 General Election ballot and designated as the "Citizenship Requirement to Vote in West Virginia Elections Amendment.” The ballot would explain it by saying, “This amendment provides that in all elections held in West Virginia only citizens of this state who are citizens of the United States are qualified to vote.”
Two-thirds of the members of each house must agree before the resolution goes forward. Then, the voters would vote on the amendment in this fall’s general election.
“Only citizens of the state who are citizens of the United States shall be entitled to vote at all elections held within the counties in which they respectively reside;” the amended section would state. “But no person who is a minor, or who has been declared mentally incompetent by a court of competent jurisdiction, or who is under conviction of treason, felony or bribery in an election, or who has not been a resident of the state and of the county in which he offers to vote, for thirty days next preceding such offer, shall be permitted to vote while such disability continues; but no person in the military, naval or marine service of the United States shall be deemed a resident of this state by reason of being stationed therein.”
