West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and a graduate of the West Virginia University School of Law School. He earned Master of Law degrees from the University of Virginia Law School and the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s School.
During his 23-year career in the United States Army, Secretary Warner served on four continents, deploying to military hot spots around the world. On one assignment, Warner took part in activities involving the capture and transfer of suspected war criminals to the International Court of Justice at the Hague. In other assignments, he served as an artilleryman, prosecutor, defense counsel, command adviser, and law instructor. He held a variety of leadership and teaching positions, culminating as the Chief of International Law for the US Army Europe in Heidelberg, Germany. He also served on the staff at the U.S. Army War College.
Following military retirement, Secretary Warner served as a contractor with the U.S. State Department in Afghanistan for five years. There, he served as Chief of the Organizational Capacity Building Section of the world’s largest Rule of Law program. He led over 100 Afghan lawyers, translators and administrative personnel, along with a team of international subject matter experts in advising the Afghan Supreme Court, Attorney General’s office, Ministry of Justice, and Ministry of Women’s Affairs.
Secretary Warner took his oath of office in January 2017, and quickly went to work focusing on election integrity and cyber security. Working closely with county clerks, the Office of the Secretary of State posted record-setting numbers: they registered over 46,000 new voters — an incredible number in a non-election year — 13,688 of whom were high school students.
During that first twelve-month period, the Warner administration cleaned up voter rolls by deleting nearly 90,000 deceased, duplicate and improper voter files – which is about 7% of West Virginia’s total registered voter list.
And the Office continues to work with clerks to set new records: to date, more than 140,000 eligible residents have registered to vote, with over 36,000 being high school students. As to election integrity, it is notable that more than 190,000 deceased, duplicate and improper voter files have been eliminated. That is more than 15% of the files that had existed prior to Secretary Warner’s focused clean up initiative.
Secretary Warner’s passion for transparent, fair and fraud-free elections has generated a renewed confidence in West Virginia voters. Because of his military background and keen interest in election cyber security, Secretary Warner has earned West Virginia national attention as a leader in protecting voter databases and elections systems. He has teamed with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to produce the premier program to educate the American public on election security, foreign influence, and protective measures against cyber threats to elections.
As the state’s registrar for businesses, Secretary Warner worked with the WVSOS Business & Licensing Division to open the WV One Stop Business Center. This single location houses four state agencies all working together to make business registration quick and convenient. The WV One Stop is believed to be the first four-agency single-location cooperative effort anywhere in the United States, and it serves as an example of state government being run like a business. In fact, the One Stop’s motto is, “Working at the speed of business!”
Secretary Warner is a sixth generation West Virginian. Born and raised in Kanawha County, he is the third of six sons of the late George ‘Brud’ and Margaret McCoy Warner. Warner is a graduate of George Washington High School in Charleston where he played football, wrestled, and ran track.
He and his wife Debbie Law Warner have been married for 37 years, and they raised four children in Monongalia County – all of whom are serving, or have served, in the United States military. The Warner’s have four grandchildren.