Various West Virginia election law bills all failed to pass by the March 3 deadline. Bills that didn’t pass out of their house of origin by that date cannot pass this year. One bill that failed to advance in time is HB 4137, which would have altered the order of political parties on the general election ballot. Existing law says the party that carried the state for president in the last election gets the top line, or the column on the far left. The bill would have changed that, so that the party with the most registered voters gets the best spot. Although it passed the House Judiciary Committee, it never got a vote on the House floor.

The ten sponsors of the bill are all Democrats. The Republican slate of presidential elector candidates has won in West Virginia for each of the last three elections. But Democrats have almost twice as many registered voters as Republicans. A better bill would have been one to provide for either rotation of party columns, or a random selection procedure to determine order of parties.

Other election law bills that failed to pass are: SB 334 and HB 2657, which would have required declared write-in candidates to pay a partial filing fee; HB 2974, which would have abolished the straight-ticket device; and HB 2052, which would have kept candidates off the ballot if they were ever convicted of a felony. The latter bill, if enacted, would have been unconstitutional as to federal candidates.