Voters leave a polling station in Louisiana during the November 2024 election. The Trump administration is pushing for a federal law that would require individuals to prove their citizenship to register to vote. (Photo by Matthew Perschall/Louisiana Illuminator)
It is said in some circles that this country was founded as a republic and not a democracy. This makes you wonder why we should be so concerned about how well democracy works. Our Founding Fathers were, in fact, a group of wealthy white men who worried about an excess of democracy in government, which they equated with mob rule. Their writings reveal a forceful concern for protecting property, including slaves, from expropriation by the broader class of less fortunate citizens. Their solution was a republic that did not allow direct popular election of the president, vice president, or U.S. senators.
Remnants of it are still in utilize 250 years later. Although their names do not appear on the ballot, when you cast your vote for president, you are actually voting for electors appointed by your candidate’s political party. The original theory behind this was that if a tyrant was elected by the people, intelligent voters could intervene to elect a suitable president. While it still is possible In many states, it is extremely scarce for a voter to vote for a candidate other than the one chosen by the people.
But since 1789 we have turned heavily to democracy as our organizing principle. Property requirements for voting were eliminated before the civil war. The Seventeenth Amendment introduced direct election of US senators in 1913. And in West Virginia we love direct democracy. We vote directly for the Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of Agriculture, all delegates and senators in the Legislature, and even Supreme Court justices. While our framework is republican, our practice is entirely democratic. So we should have a compelling interest in strengthening this democracy.
A hearty democracy consists of several components, including constitutional courts, a free press and a energetic civil society. But most would agree that the key to a hearty democracy is voting – who gets to vote and how. Not an express provision of the US Constitution Guarantees the right to vote for everyone. Who votes and how we vote depends largely on state law, although federal law imposes some basic principles on states.
The political battle over voting boils down to whether voting should be made easier and expanded to the greatest number of citizens or whether we are more concerned with electoral integrity. A cynic might say that your assessment of the relative importance of these things depends on whether your political party would benefit from them.
The cynical view may be correct, at least for proponents of the election integrity position. Our national story is about the ever-increasing circle of people being accepted into political participation. People of color and women are the best examples. This national story was supported and celebrated by both political parties. Remember that it was the Republican Party that produced the major constitutional amendments after the Civil War, including the 15th Amendment, which prohibits denial of the right to vote on grounds of race.
But the election integrity argument is a fresh phenomenon that only emerged nationally with President Donald Trump’s false claim that he was cheated out of victory in the 2020 election. He has railed without evidence about Democrats’ alleged fraud in major cities like Philadelphia and Atlanta. He has complained about electronic voting machines and postal voting. The Republican Party immediately adopted these positions.
The essence of this argument is that the government should go out of its way to prevent the miniature number of ineligible people from voting, regardless of the side effects on those who are eligible to vote. Election integrity measures tend to limit who can vote and complicate voting circumstances. It is demanding to ignore that the demographic groups that traditionally vote for the Democratic Party are the hardest hit.
Eligibility to vote
When it comes to the question of who should be eligible to vote, one party would severely restrict the pool of eligible voters while the other would expand it.
A Republican delegate suggested House Bill 5037 This would limit the definition of “voter” under West Virginia law to a “natural born citizen of the United States,” thereby disenfranchising all citizens born in other countries who forego miniature American flags at emotional naturalization ceremonies. A Democratic delegate introduced House Bill 5117 This would restore voting rights to convicted felons who have completed their prison terms, including while on probation or supervised release.
Voter ID card
Fraud through voter fraud is practically non-existent in the United States. Nevertheless, West Virginia’s Republican-led legislature passed a law in 2025 require photo ID vote. This replaced a 2018 law that required ID but not photo ID. Strict voter ID laws complicate the voting process, intimidate some potential voters and reduce the number of indigent and less educated voters. Strict voter ID laws address a problem that doesn’t exist and, as a side effect, hinder voter turnout.
Postal voting
In West Virginia, voters who cannot go to the polls in person can various reasons can request a mail-in ballot and send it in by mail. One reason that qualifies a voter to vote by mail is “physical disability or immobility due to extremely advanced age.” A proposed bill The voting law introduced by a Democratic legislature would replace “any voter who has reached the age of 65,” thereby sparing older people from having to prove disability or immobility.
A mail-in ballot must be postmarked on or before Election Day, but can be counted if it is received by the canvassing date. Most from President Trump current position on postal ballots of any kind is decidedly negative:
Mail-in ballots are corrupt. Mail-in ballots. You can never have a real democracy with postal voting. And we as the Republican Party will do everything we can to abolish postal voting.
In response to these sentiments, Republicans in the House have introduced bills that would limit the scope of mail-in voting. HB 4600passed in the House of Representatives requires mail-in ballots to be sent out early enough to be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day. This means that these voters would be required to vote before On Election Day, all other voters lose the privilege of considering their vote up until that day.
Voter turnout in West Virginia is miserableand we should take care of our democracy by taking actions that improve it. Election integrity is a worthy goal, but according to our foreign ministerWest Virginia’s elections are neat. No matter how you look at it, electoral integrity should be secondary to strengthening our electoral democracy. We cannot allow election integrity to be the tail that wags the dog.
