PARKERSBURG — The county may need more poll workers for the general election as some of the lists submitted to the Wood County Clerk this week are falling short of the number needed to open all the 68 voting precincts.

Wood County Clerk Mark Rhodes appeared before the Wood County Commission on Thursday to discuss preparations for the Nov. 3 general election amid the pandemic.

Rhodes informed the commission he had received a list of 88 confirmed poll workers and eight alternates from the Wood County Democratic Executive Committee. There are 136 slots total for the Democrats to fill. The party nominates a poll clerk and a poll commissioner for each precinct.

“They had a few people who said ‘no’ and they have gotten some volunteers who said they wanted to work,” Rhodes said.

He is still waiting for the list from the Wood County Republican Executive Committee, which could be coming by the end of the week or early next week.

The Republican Party will need to submit 204 names. It nominates a poll clerk, a poll commissioner and a supply commissioner.

The lists need to be in by Tuesday and they will be turned over to the county commission on Aug. 31 for approval.

From there they will fill slots with the alternates, non-partisan volunteers and others who contacted their office to volunteer and are not affiliated with the two major parties.

“If anyone wants to work, they can call our office,” Rhodes said. “We will put them on an alternate list if they have not been nominated yet.”

Workers have to be a registered voter in the county. They cannot be a candidate or the family member of a candidate. They have to be able to read and write in English. They also have to be willing to work for an entire day as polls open at 5:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m. There can be additional time involved if people are still in line at closing time and how it takes for those people to vote and for workers to get the votes delivered to the courthouse to be counted. They also have to attend a 2-hour training class in early October as officials determine how many they can safely have in each class.

For all the 68 precincts to open, the county will need 340 total poll workers. If they don’t get that number, voting locations may be consolidated again.

Rhodes thinks they will have enough poll workers that they will have more combined locations than the seven consolidated locations they had open during the primary.

Commission President Blair Couch said they are putting the word out now to hopefully get more volunteers before the election.

“We are trying to get the message out now that we are short,” he said. “If you are a registered R or D or even registered no party, we can probably find a place for you.”

“It is an exciting time and we hope the election goes smoothly,” Couch added. “More precincts would certainly allow that.”

Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com.