West Virginia Mingo County Incorrect Ballot Challenge

Lawsuit filed by a voter against the Clerk of Mingo County Larry Croaff challenging the county’s failure to provide correctly printed ballots to 678 voters during West Virginia’s early in-person voting for the 2024 general election. From Oct. 23 to Oct. 28, Mingo County early voters voted on ballots that incorrectly listed Randy Fowler as the Democratic candidate for the state’s sixth Senate district. The actual Democratic candidate for the sixth Senate district was Jeff Disibbio. The county’s ballot printing vendor discovered the error and the county began issuing corrected ballots on Oct. 28. Despite this error, none of the votes cast for the incorrectly listed Democratic candidate will be counted. 

The county clerk did not notify voters who were impacted by this error. The clerk also told local press that the affected voters could vote again with a provisional ballot. However, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner (R) clarified that casting a provisional ballot would not be an appropriate solution because in-person voting in West Virginia is anonymous with no way to identify and withdraw each individual incorrect ballot and replace it with a corrected ballot.

The plaintiff alleges that this error is a pattern in Mingo County. He argues that this threatens to disenfranchise a large number of voters, in violation of the state constitution, which guarantees a right to participate in free and fair elections. The plaintiff asks the court to order Mingo County to hold a new election for the sixth state Senate district.  

STATUS: The plaintiff filed his petition on Nov. 5, 2024.