Illness slows Wood County canvass

PARKERSBURG -- The canvass of votes from the Nov. 3 election in Wood County was not completed Monday, with two county commissioners unavailable.

Commissioner Jimmy Colombo was absent at the start of Monday's meeting due to illness, and Commission President Blair Couch and Commissioner Bob Tebay began the process of reviewing provisional ballots.

However, Tebay said he was also not feeling well and departed less than an hour after the meeting started in order to be checked out.

Wood County Clerk Mark Rhodes said there were 142 absentee ballots to be counted, along with 388 provisionals that must be reviewed before they can be counted.

Couch, along with Rhodes and other county personnel, continued to review provisional ballots to determine whether they should be counted, due to issues including people voting in the wrong precinct, unregistered voters casting ballots or people requesting an absentee ballot but then voting in person.

Other issues involved people being released from Department of Corrections jurisdiction and having their voting rights restored, some people were registered in another county, people who were credited for the vote made by another person with a similar name (usually parents and their adult children), people who were voting in a different precinct and whether they had the same ballot as their assigned district, people who had a change of address but did not update their voter registration, name changes, people who could not provide identification and more.

In a handful of instances, people who were required to go and vote at VanDevender Middle School reported right when the polls were suppose to open, but the precinct was late opening. Equipment had been delivered the Friday before Election Day and it was secured in a room. When poll workers reported to the school, the person who let them in was not the same people who locked up the equipment and they had to find it and set it up.

"People were initially sent to a different location with the same ballot style and voted a provisional ballot," Rhodes said. "It is provisional since the person is not voting in the precinct they were vote assigned.

"(Once officially reviewed) it should count, because they were sent there by the poll workers."

One ballot had to be checked on because a person had an address along the Wood/Wirt line with a Wood County address, but part of their property is in Wirt. They were checking to see if the person was registered in Wirt and if they might have voted in both counties.

No official action was taken on any of the reviewed ballots. Officials separated out the ballots into different stacks for the ones they felt should count, the ones they feel should be rejected and those officials will have to do additional checking on.

"Everything was done preliminarily," Couch said. "We will have another commissioner go through and agree or disagree."

"We are doing the preliminary work (Monday) so everything can be done (today)," Rhodes adding of the hope they will have two commissioners available to continue.

Tebay and Couch were able to take action to allow the absentee ballots to go ahead and be counted. However, those results cannot be certified until at least two commissioners can sign off on it.

A group of over a dozen poll workers were also at the courthouse Monday to begin the hand count of three randomly chosen precincts to make sure the numbers match up with what counted with the ballot scanners on Election Day. They were reviewing the ballots in precincts 13, 43a and 54. With one precinct, the ballots had to be separated as two precincts at one location went into the scanner box.

One other commissioner will have to come in at some in at some point, review the challenged ballots and sign off on the ones rejected or accepted before they can be tabulated.

Absentee ballots had to be received by 9 a.m. Monday and postmarked on Election Day, Nov. 3, to be counted.

The county received four absentee ballots Monday morning which were all correctly postmarked to be counted.

"We got a couple that were postmarked Nov. 5 so those will not count," Rhodes said. "Anything postmarked before or on Nov. 3 will be added into the official counts as soon as the canvass is over."

Couch said with Rhodes and the other personnel present, he felt comfortable going ahead with some of the preliminary work on Monday and finishing it when they had two commissioners present.

Couch said he has reviewed the ballots using the same guidelines they always have over the course of the elections he has certified. He made notations on each challenged ballot that another commissioner can review in detail if they wish.

Rhodes added they can go over everything with Tebay and/or Colombo when they are present.

"Nothing was ruled upon (Monday)," he said. "It is not until the second commissioner signs off on it that is has been ruled on."

Couch said what happened Monday should not preclude him some doing some preliminary work.

"No decisions are being made," he said.

One Parkersburg City Council race has a 23-vote margin with 28 absentee still to be officially counted that has the possibility of changing the outcome.

At least two commissioners have to be present before the results can be finalized, certified and added to the final count for the county.

Officials said the plan is for that to take place today, if possible. They will gather on the fourth floor at the Wood County Courthouse this morning at 9 a.m. to see if they have a quorum to be able to continue with the canvassing process.

If not, Wednesday is the Veterans Day holiday and county offices will be closed. The commission would then reconvene Thursday at 9 a.m. to see if a quorum is present to continue. Officials said they would even look at doing an emergency session some evening, if need be.

"We will continue it until we have two," Rhodes said.

Staff Reporter Evan Bevins contributed to this story.

Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com