Wood election canvass continues today

Spot in Democratic 10th Delegate race could change hands

By PAMELA BRUST
PARKERSBURG — On Monday, Wood County commissioners got down to the tedious but necessary task of canvassing the primary election.

The Board of Canvass reviews each provisional (challenged) ballot to decide whether it will count. Simultaneously, teams of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats perform the required hand-count of four precincts. While the board reviewed the 376 provisional ballots, staff in Clerk Jamie Six’s office were inputting the flash cards.

“The flash cards are memory cards that go into the iVotronics. They have vote totals for each precinct and the provisional ballots on them. We pull them then when the board makes its decision on the provisional ballots, the ones they overrule the challenge on will be added onto the totals. The provisional ballots are assigned code numbers showing the precinct and ballot number,” said Mark Rhodes with the clerk’s office.

One of the problems encountered Monday was some pollwokers failed to encode or encode properly the provisional ballot number leaving no way to retrieve that ballot, which meant it was in the count total without being ruled on by the board. While the problem seemed isolated, Six said one precinct discovered later Monday had 16 provisional ballots, some were not encoded, others were not encoded properly.

“We asked the head pollworker at that precinct to come down to the board and get it straightened out. In the other instance, they did catch it early on; they realized what they had done and there were only a few that got through. They apparently just forgot; all that is covered in their training,” Six said.

Examples of overruled challenges were ballots cast by pollworkers who had to vote in the precinct they worked election day instead of their home precinct. Once their pollworker status was confirmed, those ballots will be counted. Examples of sustained challenges, meaning the ballot will not be counted, included a voter from Raleigh County who attempted to vote here. Voters going to the wrong precinct where the ballot was a different type and people voting more than once had ballots not counted.

This was the first year nonpartisan voters could request either a Democrat or Republican ballot in the primary. Apparently that option caught some unaware and caused confusion for others. Election officials said some voters thought they could vote both Republican and Democrat ballots. Others thought even though they are registered in one party, they could vote the other party’s ballot.

And despite repeated media coverage of the change, others claimed they were not aware they could request a Republican or Democrat ballot if they registered nonpartisan. Finding out later, some demanded to be allowed to vote again. In one case, the voter asked to appear before the board to argue his case on Monday.

“We explained the law to him and the commission sustained the challenge. His original nonpartisan ballot was counted, but his second Democrat ballot will not. He encouraged us to seek the legislative change so the pollworkers can tell voters about the choice,” Six said.

The 10th District Democrat House race could be affected, with third-place finisher Iris McCrady having 3,280 votes to Tim Fittro’s 3,277 votes. Fittro was present Monday morning to observe and keep track of the board’s rulings.

“I just wanted to see how the process works,” he said.

Once the handcount is concluded and overruled provisional ballots are added into the primary night numbers, the board can declare the results. This begins a 48-hour period during which any candidate can request a recount. If no recount is requested, the board can certify the results.

Six said the hand-count would continue today.