Senate Bill No. 157
(By Senators Ball, Love, Minard, Dittmar, Anderson, Sharpe,
Hunter, Ross, Bailey and Mitchell)
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[Introduced January 18, 1999;
referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section six, article nine, chapter
three of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to reducing from
three hundred feet to one hundred feet the distance in which
a person may remain in the vicinity of a polling place.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section six, article nine, 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 9. OFFENSES AND PENALTIES.
§3-9-6. Unauthorized presence in election room; one
hundred-foot limit; penalties.
If any person, not herein authorized so to do, enters or attempts to enter the election room, except upon a lawful errand
and for a proper purpose, or remains within three one hundred
feet of the outside entrance to the building housing the polling
place, contrary to the provisions of this chapter, he shall be
guilty of a misdemeanor and, on conviction thereof, shall be
fined not less than fifty dollars nor more than five hundred
dollars, or confined in the county jail for not more than thirty
days.
Excepting those individuals provided for expressly in this
or other sections of the code, only full-time employees of the
secretary of state's office or full-time employees of the
respective county offices of the county clerk or the county
prosecutor may enter or otherwise disturb the polling place.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to reduce from 300 feet
to 100 feet the distance within which an unauthorized person may
remain in the vicinity of a polling place.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.