West Virginia Gov. Morrisey circulated unsubstantiated fraud claims, misleading graphic to justify clothing-voucher program's closure

On Aug. 5, 2026, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey circulated an AI-generated graphic on his office's social media accounts claiming that 49.5% of funds distributed through the state's $200 school clothing allowance program -- about $5.45 million -- had been withdrawn as untraceable cash from ATMs, presenting the figure as evidence the money was being misused. The graphic followed remarks Morrisey made a day earlier at a Marshall University event in Huntington, where he said he wanted clothing-voucher money to go "for school clothes, not for beer and cigarettes," and later that night in Oceana said nearly half the funds were untraceable. Morrisey offered no data or specific example of fraud; asked directly by WSAZ whether he had found fraud, he answered only that cash cards inherently create "problems."

West Virginia's Department of Human Services did not respond to a West Virginia Watch request for detailed spending data. DHS Secretary Carl Ayers did publicly clarify that standard bank ATMs -- not only the restricted ones cited in the fraud narrative -- allow withdrawals usable for "anything including tobacco and alcohol," a statement that complicated Morrisey's framing rather than supporting it. House Finance Committee Chairman Vernon Criss, R-Wood, said the EBT cards already carry statutory bans on beer and cigarette purchases and challenged Morrisey to "show me the paperwork, show me the transactions."

The claims came weeks after Morrisey's administration delayed the program's opening by roughly three weeks and then closed applications after just seven days, a decision his office originally attributed to exhausted funding. By early August, Morrisey had shifted from that financial explanation to unproven fraud allegations to justify the program's early closure, without producing supporting data for either account.