Primary canvass set for Friday
By PAMELA BRUSTPARKERSBURG — Wood County commissioners will convene Friday for the primary election canvass, but the real work will commence Monday.
“They routinely convene to meet the requirement, then begin the real work the following Monday. That way that gives us more time to get ready,” Wood County Clerk Jamie Six said. There were around 370 provisional ballots, which used to be called challenged ballots, from Tuesday’s election. These ballots are checked to verify the voter registration information. The commissioners, acting as the board of canvass, then rule on each provisional ballot, deciding whether it will be counted or not.
Normally the outcome of races is not affected by the canvass because of the vote totals. But in this case, there was one tight race, which could change hands. In the 10th District House of Delegates race on the Democratic ticket, candidates Iris McCrady finished the night with 3,280 votes compared to Timothy Fittro’s 3,277, a three-vote difference. There are three candidates nominated to go into the general election from the Democrats and Republicans from that district. Dan Poling received 4,402 votes and Brenda Brum received 5,283 votes in the Democratic primary on Tuesday.
A hand count of four precincts is also required during the canvass. Once the final numbers are computed, the board of canvass can declare the results, which commences a 48-hour period during which any candidate can request a recount.
If no recount is requested, the board then certifies the results. Once the results are declared, the provisionals that were overruled (meaning the vote will be allowed) are added in.
“It’s at that point when the precinct-by-precinct results will be available,” Six said.
Six said everything went fairly smoothly for Tuesday’s election. The county’s Web site doesn’t have a counter to show how much use it received Tuesday night, but officials said it is a primary source of information for many wanting to watch the up-to-the-minute results as they become available.
“But people still enjoy coming down to the courthouse on election night, there’s food provided by the parties and I think a lot of people just enjoy talking the politics of the night and we display the results at the courthouse that night as well,” Six said.
Six said while he’d always like to see more voters come out, he felt Tuesday’s turnout was still good. Wood County had 41.48 percent of its voters turn out. Based on the number of ballots cast in the Democratic Party, that turnout was much higher, at 59.30 percent. Out of 52,316 registered voters, 21,700 ballots were cast, accounting for the 41.48 percent turnout. There were 12,998 Democrat ballots, 8,428 Republican ballots and 274 nonpartisan ballots voted, which amounts to a 59.30 percent turnout for the Democratic Party, 39.05 percent for the Republicans and 3.11 percent for a nonpartisan turnout.
Election results were completed before 10 p.m. Tuesday to the relief of many onlookers.
“I think the big difference is the technology. The work has been moved from election night to weeks before with all the preparations. Election night as long as the pollworkers do everything they are supposed to, we can get it done quickly,” Six said. There were only a couple of hitches Tuesday night.
“We had two precincts where they failed to close all their iVotronics, so we had to pull them and close them and that took a little while. And in another precinct one of the iVotronics malfunctioned and the pollworkers were unable to close it at the polling place. We had to contact the software company and they talked us through how to close it, so that took a little while. That all caused a slight delay at the end. After all the votes were in, then we uploaded the early votes,” Six said.
