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PARKERSBURG -- It appears Wood County will have enough poll workers to man all the voting precincts on Election Day, the county clerk told the Wood County Commission on Monday.
Wood County Clerk Mark Rhodes appeared before the commission to present the list of poll workers for the 2020 General Election being held on Nov. 3 for the commission's approval.
"Right now we have enough to fill all 68 precincts, plus 10 extra," Rhodes said. "I believe that people feel this will be a very important election and they want to make sure the polls will be open so people have the opportunity to come out and vote."
The executive committees for the Wood County Republican Party and the Wood County Democratic Party have both recently submitted their lists to Rhodes of the people who agreed to work the polls on Election Day as well as the early voting period.
Each precinct has to have a certain number of Democrats and Republicans with non-partisan being able to fill certain spots as needed.
People have also been contacting Rhodes to volunteer.
"We still have people calling us and e-mailing us often that are volunteering," he said.
People will be contacted in the next week or so to verify they will be able to work and set up a training schedule.
"We have 350 poll workers on the list right now," Rhodes said. "We need 340 so we have 10 extra."
The commission unanimously approved the list of poll workers as presented by Rhodes.
They have some who may end up not being able to work on Election Day due to health and other concerns, he said, adding during a regular election they usually have 10-12 who call-in sick or decide they will not be able to work.
They have alternates who can fill some of the spots, but if enough call off, they might have to look at consolidating some of the voting locations.
"The law allows us to open a precinct with less than five workers, but I would prefer to have five at every precinct," he said.
Some single locations house more than one precinct. In a location with two precincts, instead of 10 people they can still open with eight, if need be, Rhodes said.
People can still volunteer.
"Anyone who wants to work, they can get a hold of us and we will try to get them scheduled in," Rhodes said. "We always want to keep a good list of alternates and back-ups.
"It doesn't matter what party you are or if you have a party. We will take you."
Rhodes said both parties had non-partisan volunteers on the lists they submitted.
During the primary in June, the county operated seven polling locations due to restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Rhodes is hopeful that will not be the case for the general election.
"Even if we have to consolidate some of the precincts, we should still be good," he said.
The county will also have electronic poll books in place for the upcoming election. The county will have 70 new electronic poll books, one for each of the county's 68 voting precincts with the extras for spares. The devices replace the paper poll books at voting locations on Election Day. These are an electronic version of the poll books people sign when they vote.
The entire county's voting rolls can be loaded onto each device. If someone walks in the wrong precinct, they can see they are in the wrong place and poll workers can tell them where they need to go, officials said.
The devices would eliminate the need for lines of voters to be divided by the letters of their last names, eliminating the different length of lines on Election Day.
Also, the lists of people who early voted would be uploaded on Election Day and poll workers would immediately know if someone has already voted.
"Those will help facilitate the voter moving through the check-in process a little faster," Rhodes said.
As of Monday morning, Wood County had 2,097 requests for absentee ballots with an additional 750 on the portal being operated through the West Virginia Secretary of State's Office that the county clerk's office has to process, he said.
In other business:
* Wood County Parks Supervisor Jeremy Cross said it will be a busy time at Mountwood Park with a number of maintenance projects in the works.
Since Volcano Days has been canceled this year, Cross said they have an opportunity to get some things accomplished, including putting a new air system at the main building at White Oak Village.
* The commission unanimously reappointed Charlie Meyers to the Wood County 911 Advisory Board.
Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com