ENROLLED

H. B. 2686


(By Delegates Fleischauer, Buchanan and Beach)


[Passed April 12, 1997; in effect ninety days from passage.]


AN ACT to amend and reenact section eleven, article three, chapter three of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to authorizing the clerks of the circuit courts to affix their signatures on absentee ballots by facsimile.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section eleven, article three, chapter three of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 3. VOTING BY ABSENTEES.

§3-3-11. Preparation, number and handling of absent voters' ballots.
Absent voters' ballots shall be in all respects like other ballots. Not less than seventy days before the date on which any primary, general or special election is to be held, unless a lesser number of days is provided for in any specific election law in which case the lesser number of days applies, the clerks of the circuit courts of the several counties shall estimate and determine the number of absent voters' ballots of all kinds which will be required in their respective counties for that election. The ballots for the election of all officers, or the ratification, acceptance or rejection of any measure, proposition or other public question to be voted on by the voters, shall be prepared and printed under the direction of the board of ballot commissioners constituted as provided in article one of this chapter. The several county boards of ballot commissioners shall prepare and have printed, in the number they may determine, absent voters' ballots that are to be printed under their directions as hereinbefore provided, and those ballots shall be delivered to the clerk of the circuit court of the county not less than forty-two days before the day of the election at which they are to be used. Before any ballot is mailed or delivered, the clerk of the circuit court shall affix his or her official seal and he or she and the other members of the board of ballot commissioners shall place their signatures near the lower left-hand corner on the back thereof. The clerks of the circuit courts are authorized to have their signatures affixed by a facsimile printed on the back of absentee ballots, by a facsimile signature stamp, or by signing their original signatures. An absent voter's ballot not containing the seal and signatures is invalid and is subject to challenge by any election commissioner or poll clerk.
The clerk of the circuit court shall be primarily responsible for the preparation, mailing, receiving, delivering and otherwise handling of all absent voters' ballots. He or she shall keep a record, as may be prescribed by the secretary of state, of all ballots so delivered for the purpose of absentee voting, as well as all ballots, if any, marked before him or her, and shall deliver to the commissioner of election to whom the ballots for the precinct are delivered and at the time of the delivery of those ballots a certificate stating the number of ballots delivered or mailed to absent voters, and those marked before him or her, if any, and the names of the voters to whom those ballots have been delivered or mailed, or by whom they have been marked, if marked before him or her.