Submitted photo Kris Warner is the Republican nominee for West Virginia Secretary of State. He will speak at the Randolph County Lincoln Day Dinner on Sept. 14.

ELKINS — Kris Warner, the Republican nominee for West Virginia Secretary of State, will be the guest speaker at this year’s Randolph County Republican Executive Committee’s Lincoln Day Dinner.

The annual dinner will be Saturday, Sept. 14 at 5 p.m. at the Elks Club in Elkins. The social hour will begin at 4 p.m.

Warner is the executive director of the state Economic Development Authority under Gov. Jim Justice. He served four years as former President Donald Trump’s appointee as state director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development office in West Virginia, from 2017 to 2021. He is a former chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party in the mid-2000s. He is also the brother of Secretary of State Mac Warner.

Warner is proud of the foundations he helped lay in the 2000s that led to a Republican supermajority in the Legislature, all of West Virginia’s statewide offices being led by Republicans, and the impending retirement of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, the last elected Democratic member of the state’s congressional delegation. 

Warner wants to continue what he sees as the good work of his brother, Mac Warner, over the last nearly eight years, including working with existing staff and systems. That includes continuing to work with county clerks on voter roll clean-up.

“Cleaning of the voter rolls is extremely important, and it’s something that can’t be left where it is today,” he said. “We just can’t rest on the fact that there are those 400,000 names that have been reduced.”

The influence of social media companies on elections is also of great concern to Warner. He believes these companies need to treat all political candidates the same and should file campaign finance reports showing what candidates and committees spend on these platforms.

“If you’re throttling a candidate’s webpage 30 days before the election and then restoring it two days later and saying, ‘I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have de-platformed you,’ that’s a problem,” Warner said. “Here in West Virginia, I think we’ve got to be on our toes, and that’s got to be a priority.”

Warner also believes that poll workers in all 55 counties should be paid the same rate, and that beyond helping with recruitment of poll workers, Warner believes that the Secretary of State’s Office should help counties foot the bill for paying poll workers.

“Quite frankly, the Secretary of State’s Office should be reimbursing the county commissions; those that pay the poll workers,” Warner said. “It should be a reimbursed amount. That shouldn’t be something that falls on Gilmer County or Clay County or Webster County the same as it would fall on Kanawha County or Berkeley County being much larger counties. So, that’s something that I would like to do.”

Warner also wants to continue the work the office has done to automate frequently asked questions using the SOLO, an AI chatbot tool. But he also doesn’t want to lose the in-person assistance for business owners that the office is known for.

“Whether you are talking to an intern that’s new in the office or somebody that’s been there 30 years, I think that there’s much more that could be done and could be an example for all of state government to use that system to where you obviously have live staff members answering calls during the business day, but for any other hour of the day, you should be able to call in and get those 900 most answered questions,” Warner said.

Warner attended West Virginia University. He is a graduate of Leadership West Virginia and was a charter member of Leadership Monongalia. Having previously served on the Board of Advisors for Potomac State College, he is the current president of the U.S. Air Force Academy Parents’ Club of West Virginia.

He currently resides in Morgantown with Joyce, his wife of 25 years, and three children. Two of their children are now grown and are currently serving in the U.S. Air Force. Their family attends Chestnut Ridge Church in Morgantown.

Warner manages and maintains his ancestral family farm in Barbour County, a land tract that goes back five generations He is also an active volunteer for the Republican Party. He currently serves as the National Committeeman for West Virginia and previously served as the Chairman of the Monongalia County and the West Virginia State Republican Party.

For Lincoln Day Dinner tickets, call Carolyn Jackson at 304-636-1019.