Charleston, W.Va. – In response to today’s defeat of the so-called "Freedom to Vote Act", WV Secretary of State Mac Warner released the following statement:

"The latest attempt by Washington, DC bureaucrats to nationalize our states’ elections has now suffered the same defeat as H.R. 1 and other ill-fated, fraud-enabling efforts introduced over the last several years. Once again, supporters of this bill in Congress did not listen to their constituents or state and local election officials."

"In West Virginia, 54 of 55 county clerks opposed the Freedom to Vote Act. Following existing law and state-specific processes over the past 5 years, our clerks worked tirelessly to make our voter rolls more accurate than ever before and registered more than 255,000 voters."

"We successfully implemented reasonable voter ID requirements, saw more than 802,000 citizens vote in last year’s general election, and offered more ways to vote than arguably any other state."

"West Virginia’s election systems are not broken. We ranked near the top of all states in voter confidence following the 2020 election cycle. States with less confidence in their elections should turn to their state legislators to address state-specific needs, just as the U.S. Constitution expressly provides. This bill’s failure today shows, yet again, that it is not the role of Congress to nationalize election administration."

NOTE: By request, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner penned a letter to both West Virginia Senators with 8 specific examples of concern of the Freedom to Vote Act that would have negative impacts on state and national election administration. The letter can be found here.