CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In the last two months, two polls have found West Virginia voters have concerns about so-called "dark money" in politics.

They say the opaque political spending by nonprofits, shell companies and outside groups to state officials means voters don't always get the information they need about candidates.

Quentin Berg, a Putnam County resident, said he believes dark money is an issue in both major political parties in the state, and thinks it's become almost impossible for most West Virginia voters to accurately assess a candidate's priorities.

"Without that accountability, it's impossible to know what their real priorities are whenever they get into office," Berg contended.

A pair of polls released in March and in May by the End Citizens United/Let America Vote Action Fund found 79% of West Virginians support the "For the People Act" in Congress, which would require any group spending more than $10,000 on political ads to disclose all donors who gave that amount or more.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has voiced opposition to the legislation.

In 2020, nationwide state and federal election spending was estimated at about $14 billion, almost double what was spent in 2016, and is based on official Federal Election Commission filings.

But experts at the Leir Institute at Tufts University say it does not fully account for dark money.

Berg believes instead of catering to the needs of corporate donors, West Virginia elected officials should be working to invest in communities and the state's outdoor recreation economy.

"We don't do a good job at putting money into our people and into our communities, to make it a place to live, a place that you want to raise a family," Berg asserted.

According to opensecrets.org, in 2020, liberal groups used more than $514 million in dark money toward elections, compared with around $200 million used by Republican groups.

Control of the U.S. Senate could once again be decided in Georgia as a tight race between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker heads to a runoff.

Peach State voters are bracing for a four-week blitz of campaigning and massive spending as each candidate and his supporters pump record cash into the race.

So far, Warnock's campaign has spent $135.8 million, while Walker's has spent $32.4 million, according to data from the Federal Election Commission. Millions in outside spending are also expected to keep flooding the state.

Sarah Bryner, director of research and strategy for the group OpenSecrets, said the expenditure is par for the course.

"Georgia being a purple state is going to likely see huge amounts of spending in the future," Bryner projected. "So long as those races are the ones that have the potential to make or break the outcome."

This will be the second runoff for Warnock, who first won his seat in January 2021 in the most expensive congressional elections to date, drawing nearly $363 million. Other close-call contests in Arizona and Nevada could tip the scale for control of the Senate but for now, the Georgia race will be decided Dec. 6.

Neither candidate surpassed the 50% threshold to win the race outright, so they will be making their pitch yet again and Bryner pointed out it will take a lot of money to do so in Georgia and other contests around the country.

"Huge amounts of money, especially if this again is the race that makes the difference between a Democratic majority and a Republican majority," Bryner explained. "Every eye in the country is going to be on it and that means that the money will follow. "

As the race advances, voters can expect more high-profile notables to barnstorm the state including former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Walker, and President Joe Biden, who is supporting Warnock's return to Washington.

Instances of voter fraud are few and far between, but Ohio election officials want to ensure voters have confidence in the integrity of the system.

Frank LaRose, Ohio's Secretary of State, is launching a new Public Integrity Division to consolidate the office's current investigative work into campaign finance, voter registration, election law and cybersecurity irregularities.

LaRose explained his office lacks a dedicated team of professional investigators, and those tasks often fall upon local county boards of election.

"Elections administrators responsible for training poll workers and arranging voting locations and mailing out absentee ballots could tomorrow be asked to put on the investigator's hat and do an investigation," LaRose pointed out. "Naturally, that's not their skill set, and it's not what they're trained to do."

Some 31 contests in Ohio have ended in ties since 2020, with many others decided by a single vote. LaRose argued strengthening investigative capabilities will give voters greater confidence in a secure election system. The Secretary of State's Office has referred more than six dozen potential voter-fraud cases this year to local prosecutors. Democrats have criticized Republican LaRose for "wasting taxpayer dollars on a problem that doesn't exist."

The new division starts operations one day before Ohio's voter registration deadline of Oct. 11. LaRose noted a large number of absentee ballot requests are coming in, and voter registrations recently topped eight million.

"We're always working to encourage voter registration, but we also make sure that the rolls stay accurate," LaRose asserted. "So, it kind of ebbs and flows. We remove deceased voters from the rolls on a monthly basis; we make sure that people get removed from the rolls when they move out of state. So, going over eight million is something that we're really proud of."

He is also encouraging Ohioans to assist on Election Day. Ohio has close to 4,000 polling locations open for more than 12 hours, staffed by more than 50,000 volunteers.

"I always tell people, 'Think about how big Ohio Stadium is. If you're watching a Buckeyes game. That's half the seating capacity of that stadium just in poll workers.' Half of them are Republicans, half of them are Democrats, all of them are patriots that do this work of running elections," LaRose remarked. "And we need more people all the time."

Ohio has poll-worker recruitment initiatives targeting high school seniors, veterans, attorneys and others. LaRose also encouraged companies to give employees a day off work to volunteer, or nonprofit groups to create a fundraiser where volunteers donate their poll-worker pay to a charity.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Most West Virginians pay taxes on every dollar they earn, while large corporations and billionaires use tax loopholes to pay as little as zero in income taxes, and in turn use the money to pump tens of millions of dollars into political campaigns, according to a new report released by West Virginia Citizen Action Group in collaboration with Americans for Tax Fairness.

The report found almost half the nearly $190 million dollars raised by the House and Senate GOP super PACs in the first 16 months of the 2022 campaign cycle came from 27 billionaires.

Gary Zuckett, executive director of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, said Mountain State residents end up footing the bill for roads and other local government services.

"Why does this make a difference to middle- and working-class West Virginians?" Zuckett asked. "The reason it makes a difference is that every dollar that billionaires and millionaires don't pay in taxes, that tax-dodging corporations don't pay on their profits, is our tax dollars that the working class has to make up to keep our government functioning."

Billionaire political donations in 2020 were nearly double the $682 million poured into campaigns in 2016, according to data from the OpenSecrets database. Monday evening, activists rallied in Charleston outside West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin's office, calling for the passage of climate and tax-fairness legislation.

Zuckett believes lawmakers should be focusing on major campaign finance reforms ahead of the 2024 presidential election campaign, including reforming the 2009 Supreme Court decision, which paved the way for unlimited political contributions by corporations.

"We need to fix the Citizens United Ruling," Zuckett emphasized. "We need legislation that said that corporations can't spend unlimited amounts of money in politics, buying our elections."

According to the report, the nation's billionaires increased their wealth significantly during the last two years of the pandemic, from a collective $2 trillion among around 700 individuals to more than $5 trillion dollars as of last April.