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PARKERSBURG -- The Wood County Commission maintains local elections were held securely with an accurate vote count.
Local resident John Davis appeared before the commission on Thursday to see if the commission would send letters/e-mails to federal lawmakers, including U.S. Senators Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., in opposition to HR 4, a new version of the Voting Rights Act which has been worked on by federal lawmakers.
Davis said he wants to ensure that elections remain under local control. Davis maintains passage of the bill would take local control away and put all local and state elections under federal control.
"If the federal legislation passes, local authority will be removed," he said, adding in referring to local he also meant state. "That affects us."
Commissioners maintain they already maintain control guided by state law and asked if Davis felt they were not run correctly in Wood County.
"We follow state code," Commission President Blair Couch said of the system in place currently overseen by Secretary of State Mac Warner, a Republican. "We don't have rule making ability in regards to elections."
Davis did not say elections locally were not run correctly.
"I'm not suggesting anything wrong has been done," he said.
Commissioners said they have had many discussions about voting and elections and they have contacted both state and federal lawmakers when they feel something needs to be addressed. The commission has discussed the possibility of doing drop boxes for people to drop off absentee ballots which Couch maintains would be more secure than dropping a bunch of absentee ballots in the federal mail.
Commissioner Jimmy Colombo urged Davis to come when the commission meets as the canvassing board following an election to review provisional ballots and oversee the hand count of three randomly picked voting districts and observe what is done at that time.
He also said there are laws in place that ensure the commission does that. If they don't, they are prone to possible fines and jail time.
Wood County Clerk Mark Rhodes said if the country did elections like West Virginia did there would not be nearly the uncertainty. West Virginia requires I.D. to vote and people's signatures are checked. People have to request absentee ballots. If there is a concern, people can vote a provisional ballot which is reviewed by the canvassing board after it is checked and any additional information is supplied.
Both commissioners and Davis said there was a lot of misinformation being put out by people with political aims to affect how people view the election process. The commission agreed they did not need to send anything additional to federal lawmakers at this time.
Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com