Write-in procedures announced
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PARKERSBURG - Procedures for write-in candidates on election night and the canvass of the returns was explained Tuesday by the secretary of state in West Virginia.
Eight write-in candidacies for the Legislature and for U.S. Senate have been certified by the state, including in Wood County in the 12th Delegate District. Several local races across the state include write-in candidates.
The procedures for counting and certifying write-in votes mirrors how the votes cast for all other candidates whose names appear on the ballot are counted, with a couple of key differences in tallying and publishing votes cast for write-in candidates, Secretary of State Kris Warner said.
Only votes cast for certified write-in candidates can be counted, Warner said.
A certificate of announcement filed by the statutory deadline, Sept. 15, was required for all write-in candidates, Warner said. Only the write-in votes for certified candidates will be counted and others must be disregarded by law.
All West Virginia counties administer in-person voting with a combination of electronic ballot marking devices and hand-marked paper ballots, Warner said.
It's not hard to vote for a write-in, Wood County Clerk Joe Gonzales said. Instructions will be available, he said.
At the voting machines at the part that says vote for a write in, choose write-in and a pop-up touch screen with a keyboard appears, Gonzales said. Type in the name of the candidate and follow the instructions to cast the vote, he said.
"It's very simple," he said.
The law requires voters to fill-in the designated “Write-In” oval and manually print the write-in candidate's name in the space provided for the specific office on hand-marked paper ballots, Warner said. If a “Write-In” space is not provided, the law also allows voters to print the write-in candidate's name anywhere on the face of the ballot, so long as the name is legible and does not interfere with any other race.
Not all write-in votes are counted in the same way because of the different means that write-in votes can be cast, Warner said.
For write-in votes cast using a ballot marking device, county election officials have a variety of electronic options to print reports, lists and even view images of each ballot that contains a write-in vote. For hand-marked paper ballots, county officials must manually review each hand-marked ballot to determine whether a voter printed a certified write-in candidate's name on the ballot or in the space provided.
For all methods of voting, according to W. Va. Code 3-4A-27, ballots containing write-in votes will be manually counted by county election officials and the vote tallies are to be released with the unofficial results for all other candidates on the ballot on election night, Warner said.
Procedurally, because of the variety of methods of casting votes for write-in candidates, the counting process for write-in votes requires manual review. While votes cast for official candidates whose names are printed on the ballots will be tallied on election night electronically, the voting systems cannot ascertain "voter intent" for write-in votes, which is why they require manual review.
For example, for a Certified Write-In Candidate named “John Smith,” a write-in vote cast for "J. Smith" or "John Smyth" may be counted, but only because election officials can ascertain the voter's intent was to vote for “John Smith.” A voting machine, however, cannot make such a judgement call.
Therefore, on election night, votes cast for write-in candidates are likely to take longer to tally than votes cast for candidates whose names are printed on the ballots. Additionally, due to the manual nature of the process, unofficial results for write-in candidates are available on election night only directly from each county clerk's office.
The code in 3-6-5(b) provides "'the intention of the voter shall be deemed to be clear if the write-in vote cast for an office contains both the first and last name of an official write-in candidate for that office; and if no two official write-in candidates for that office share a first or last name, either the first name or last name alone shall be deemed to express the clear intention of the voter," according to the office of the secretary of state.
Misspelling the name will not matter as long as the intent of the voter to vote for the write-in candidate is clear. If two official write-in candidates do not have the same first or last name, either the first or last name of the candidate alone shall be deemed to express the clear intention of the voter, the office said.
During the canvass, the Boards of Canvassers will review all ballots that were not counted on election day, which could include additional votes for certified write-in candidates. Examples of later-counted ballots include absentee-by-mail ballots postmarked on or before election day but received afterward, and provisional ballots that were challenged on election day.
After the additional ballots have been reviewed and counted at canvass, those totals are added to the unofficial results from election day and declared by the Boards of Canvassers. Following a 48-hour period, the Boards of Canvassers may certify the results and make them official.
In Wood County, incumbent Vernon Criss, who lost the Republican primary in May, is running as a write-in for the 12th District of the House of Delegates. Criss lost the nomination to Charles Hartzog.
Hartzog, Democrat Dennis Remple and Libertarian Steve Smith are on the general election ballot in November.
Other write-ins in West Virginia are Ken Reed in Senate District 15. Reed lost to Sen. Darren Thorne for the Republican nomination. Elizabeth Ferris, Democrat, also is on the ballot.
Three write-in candidates have registered in District 50 in the House of Delegates.
House District 50: William Vest, Republican, who was appointed to replace Delegate Elliott Pritt, who withdrew from the House and the election after his arrest on charges of the sexual exploitation of a minor. The Republican Party could not fill the ballot vacancy because of the timing when Pritt withdrew.
Also running as a write-in in District 50 are Eric Walton and John Pino.
On the ballot in District 50 are Democrat Matthew Anderson, independent Tom Louisos and Constitution Party candidate Stacey Hensley.
Rio Phillips, who came in last in a five-candidate race in the primary for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, is running as a write-in for Senate. Incumbent Shelley Moore Capito, Republican, and Rachel Fetty Anderson, Democrat, are on the ballot.
Christopher Ratliff is running as a write-in for the House Of Delegates District 45 and Susan M Buchser in the House Of Delegates District 77.