A Democratic candidate for West Virginia Senate was mistakenly removed from the Mingo County ballot, a party official and the candidate said Tuesday.
Jeff Disibbio, President and CEO of the Two Virginia Chamber of Commerce, was nominated by the state Democratic Party to run for the Senate’s Sixth District in August, but the Mingo County Clerk did not update the ballot to include his name, said Mike Pushkin, chairman of the Democratic Party State party.
The West Virginia Secretary of State’s office disqualified Randy Fowler, a Democratic candidate who ran in the primary, from the ballot because he failed to file required campaign finance reports, Pushkin said.
Early voting in West Virginia The process has been running since Wednesday, October 23rd. The clerk’s office corrected the ballot on Monday but does not plan to allow the approximately 670 voters who have already voted to cast a ballot again with a corrected ballot, Pushkin said.
Late Tuesday afternoon, HD Media reported that in Mingo County, County Clerk Larry “Yogi” Croaff said his office would send corrected absentee ballots to everyone who requested an absentee ballot.
In a statement, Pushkin called the election error “unacceptable” and said the party would “exploit all legal options to ensure that the integrity of our democratic process is preserved.”
“Mistakes like this deprive voters of the opportunity to express their will at the ballot box, and that is unacceptable,” Pushkin said in the statement. “This election is about ensuring every voice is heard and every choice is respected. While mistakes do happen, it is important that immediate action be taken to correct them and ensure that voters in Senate District 6 can vote for the candidates who have legally qualified to participate in their election. Elections should be about the voice of the people, not about administrative errors.”
A spokesman for the secretary of state’s office said the office was aware of the issue in Mingo County but referred a reporter to the Mingo County District Attorney’s Office, whose representative said no one was available for comment.
The Mingo County Clerk’s Office did not immediately return a call seeking comment. A post on the Mingo County Commission’s Facebook page said Monday that early voting was temporarily suspended due to a technical glitch, but the problems had been resolved and voting had resumed.
This is not the first time voting problems have been reported in Mingo County’s District 6 race this year. Earlier this year, Republican Senator Chandler Swope challenged the primary election results after losing to challenger Craig Hart. Swope argued that the vote totals reported by the county were incorrect and that the “extraordinarily high Republican turnout” was due to some registered Democrats being allowed to vote in the Republican primary.
In a statement that was part of the file at the timeThe secretary of state’s office said that a review of voting records in the matter “found a lack of compliance with election laws relating to the proper receipt and process for facilitating the casting of votes at the county level in a primary election.” Swope withdrew the challenge with assurances that the secretary of state’s office would work to better train Mingo poll workers and election officials, his filing said.
In a statement Tuesday, Disibbio said the omission of his name from the general election ballot, as well as the problems reported in the primary, directly benefited Hart, his Republican opponent.
“It is difficult to conclude that both of these actions were simple errors,” he said in the statement. “A more likely explanation is that there are Mingo County officials who are willing to do whatever it takes to strip Mercer County of a state Senate seat and move that seat to Mingo County.”
He added that he will “take all necessary actions to ensure that we have free and fair State Senate elections in all counties in District 6, including Mingo County.”
Aside from the voting error in Mingo, Wayne County officials say an “isolated issue” with Precinct 62 in the 27th House District resulted in the ballots of 34 early voters and 19 absentee voters being corrupted, according to a news release from Wayne County Clerk Craig Evans. Affected voters in Precinct 62 were contacted by telephone or registered mail and given the option to vote again early, vote in their home precinct on Election Day or request an absentee ballot, the release said.
By Tuesday, 15 affected early voters had returned to cast their vote correctly, the press release said.
This story has been corrected to clarify that Craig Evans is the county clerk in Wayne County and has been updated to include a statement from Mingo County Clerk David “Yogi” Croaff to HD Media.
