View Scorecard for Year
Responsive Gov’s Grade TL;DR
The West Virginia Legislature enacted significant pro-voter and anti-voter reforms during the 2025 session. The Legislature established new laws to consolidate local elections with existing federal and state election dates and made it easier for voters to vote when they move within a county. However, the Legislature also passed new laws that update the state’s existing voter ID policies to remove all non-photo ID options and revised list maintenance procedures to require voters to respond to address updates if they fail to vote within only a two-year period. West Virginia received a C on this year’s progress report.
Looking Back
Where West Virginia Started at the Beginning of 2025
- Automatic Voter Registration: Hard Stop
- Online Voter Registration: DMV ID
- Same-Day Registration: No
- Restoration of Rights: Parole and/or Probation Disenfranchisement
- Vote by Mail: Excuse-Only
- Electronic Registration Information Center Member: No
- Early Voting Opportunities: In-Person Absentee
- ID Requirements: ID Requested, but not Required
Relying on the Cost of Voting Index for West Virginia as of 2024, we considered the state a middle tier state for pre-existing voting policy and compared its 2025 activity against other middle tier states.
How Our Tier Compares
2025: This Past Year
Legislative Action
The West Virginia Legislature passed several significant pieces of legislation during the 2025 session.
- SB 50 requires local election offices to consolidate their municipal election dates to align with statewide and federal election dates.
- HB 2709 allows voters that change their address within their existing county during the early voting period to cast a regular ballot at their new voting location, rather than a provisional ballot as was previously required.
- SB 486 revises voter eligibility requirements to expressly require US citizenship and further clarify other already existing requirements.
- HB 3016 requires voters to show a photo ID when voting and revises the list of acceptable voter ID to remove all non-photo documents and IDs that were previously allowed.
- SB 487 requires counties to send address confirmation notices to any voter that has not voted in the last two years.