MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Following the final presidential debate leading up to the November 8 election some officials are expecting an abundance of voters to head to the polls.
“I think that we’ll have about a 70 percent turnout,” predicted Monongalia County Clerk Carye Blaney. “The last very heavy turnout election that we had in this county since I’ve been clerk was the general election in 2008. That was a 62 percent turnout.”
That year, Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama, who’d been running against Republican Party nominee John McCain, became the 44th President of the United States.
When voters show up for this year’s general election to decide between Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican Party nominee Donald Trump they should be somewhat familiar with the ExpressVote Ballot Marking Device technology.
“We were actually the first county in the nation to use this technology in all of our precincts,” Blaney said.
It’s the equipment voters used in the primary election.
According to Blaney there are measures to prevent voters from overlooking a race or every candidate in a race. Overall, she explained voters have the chance to review decisions before finalizing the ballot.
“It allows the voter to actually place their activation card in the machine, make their selections and then that card comes back out of the machine that they can look and read and review before they actually put it into the ballot box.”
Blaney said an afternoon test run of the machines Wednesday, October 19, turned up no issues. But, anxious voters had to be turned away.
“There were actually people who came to the election center thinking they could vote, but early voting actually begins next Wednesday on October the 26th.”