West Virginia’s New Voter ID Law and the Myth of Voter Fraud
Effective on January 1, 2018, West Virginia law now requires a prospective voter to present a valid identifying document to a poll clerk. The clerk will then verify that the name on the document conforms to the individual’s voter registration record. If the identifying document has a photograph, the poll clerk will determine that the photograph is “truly an image of the person presenting the document.” This new law is similar to voter ID laws passed by state legislatures around the country at the urging of Republicans. But voter impersonation fraud – the only possible fraud affected by the new law — is virtually non-existent in the United States and no cases have been identified in West Virginia.