MINGO COUNTY, WV (WOWK) — Senator Chandler Swope (R-Mingo), who lost to challenger Craig A. Hart, is challenging the results of the Mingo County primary election, claiming that voting irregularities resulted in the county’s primary being “rigged beyond repair.”
West Virginia’s 6th Senate District includes Mercer County, as well as parts of Wayne, Mingo, and McDowell, as listed on the West Virginia Legislature website.
According to the Associated Press, Hart received 40.85% of the vote overall, incumbent Senator Swope received 36.95%, and Eric Porterfield received 22.20%. According to court documents, Hart received about 75% of the vote in Mingo County, while Senator Swope and Porterfield received about 12%.
According to court documents, Senator Swope wants to challenge the results in seven Mingo County precincts: 9, 27, 28, 30, 57, 75 and 76.
Court documents detail numerous allegations of voting irregularities in Mingo County, including allowing people to vote for a different party despite being a member of one party or the other. Two independent voters said poll workers “stood behind them and watched them vote without giving them any privacy.”
They also argue that an raise in Republican turnout in Mingo County from 2020 to 2024 shows that voters were “wrongly given a choice about which primaries they wanted to participate in.”
They are calling on the Mingo County Commissioner to make the voter rolls available “as soon as possible.” They also argue that if irregularities are found in a precinct, the votes for West Virginia’s 6th Senate District “should not be considered,” and that if voters are not allowed to vote in secret ballot, those votes “need not to be considered and any other remedy the County Commission deems appropriate must be considered.”
