A West Virginia state trial court will hear a case on October 21, on whether to remove an independent State Senate candidate from the November 8 ballot. The challenge says that independent candidate Harry “Lee” Forbes is not eligible because he lives in Summers County. He is running in the Tenth District, which has two state senators. One of these seats is up this year, and the other is not. West Virginia has a unique election law relating to two-member legislative districts. It says both the office-holders must not live in the same county.
Because the incumbent whose term is not up this year already lives in Summers County, the lawsuit says Forbes should not have been put on the ballot, and that he should be removed. It is quite unusual for anyone to expect a court to remove someone from a general election ballot as late as October 21. The ballots would need to be reprinted. See this story.
area legis body — be Elector/voter anywhere in area
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If I understand the proposed interpretation of this law law, it means that NO ONE who lives in a county from which an incumbent State Senator comes may run against him.
Anyway, if ballots could be printed out from computers when requested by actual voters, there would be no need to print out a large number of ballots before voting actually begins. That would mean that any last minute changes on the ballot could be easily made on the computer right up to the point that they are requested from the voters.
An alternative, somewhat better (but still bad) interpretation of this law could be that all the candidates from whatever county are printed on the ballot, but, in a multi county, multi member district, only the leading vote getter from any county would get elected from that county. This, of course, could still result in the second place finisher in any county having more votes than any candidates from any other county, but be barred from election. Still, a bad law IMO.
@WZ,
West Virginia senate districts have two senators elected for staggered, four year terms. The WV Constitution requires that the two senators reside in different counties within the district (and one year prior to election).
So for this 2022 election, the candidates may not be from the same county as the holdover senator elected in 2020.
This is not a new law, and is in the West Virginia constitution (1872). This requirement is not remarkable and the political parties would know not to nominate someone from the holdover county. The independent candidate was not aware of the law (which he told the court he would not dispute).
He asked that the court leave him on the ballot for 1st Amendment reasons to permit voters to express disgust with the two parties. The judge apologized for removing him and encouraged him to seek election in the future.
It is possible that his business is in a different county than his residence.
@JR
“This requirement is not remarkable and the political parties would know not to nominate someone from the holdover county”
The fact that the major parties have colluded to make the law function for a long period does not mean that it is a just law. The effect, as we have seen, is to make incumbents unchallengeable in their home counties, and works against independents and third party candidates
What evidence is there of collusion? Established political parties would be aware of the provision in the West Virginia Constitution that has been there for 150 years.
The independent candidate admitted that he was unaware of the provision. I could find no evidence that he had any campaign presence, answered any questionaires, etc.
He represented himself in court, and had just received notice of the hearing on Tuesday evening before the Wednesday hearing. The judge asked if wanted to delay the hearing so he could have time to obtain a lawyer. He declined.
Most of the 40 minute hearing was spent determining if the voting machines could be reprogrammed.
@WZ,
How does it make incumbents unchallengeable in their home counties?