MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — There will be three locations to choose from for Monongalia County voters seeking to exercise their civic duty before Nov. 6.
Early voting opens at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Monongalia County, with locations at the old Mountaineer Mall on Greenbag Road, Mason Dixon Park, and the Westover Community Building.
“For the next ten days until November 3rd is the early voting period,” Secretary of State Mac Warner said on WAJR’s Morgantown AM. “If you’re absentee, if you are going to be out of town, you can go apply up until October 31st — the last day of the month — to get an absentee ballot.”
He continued, “This election is upon us. Now’s the time to get engaged and get educated on all the candidates and be ready to go cast your vote.”
Warner also addressed concerns over voter roll purging after postcards were sent out to voters regarding registration status, saying that it takes very specific requirements to be removed from a voter roll in a county.
“All they have to do is respond to that postcard, or they can go vote,” he said. “Just going and voting renews you for another four years. But the postcard, if you don’t answer that, then that’s actually what triggers and puts the clerks in the situation. If you miss two more federal elections — so another four years — then you can be taken off the rolls.”
He also said Secretary of State’s due not specifically remove voters from the rolls. Rather, he called that a job for county clerks after voters move.
“We send that information to the county clerk from where that person moved,” Warner said. “And then that county clerk is the one who verifies with the phone call, looking at the records and so forth. And they are the ones who can remove that person from the database.”
Warner also praised Monongalia County after new identification cards were mailed to voters last week.
“Carye Blaney is issuing new identification cards, and that’s to work with the electronic poll books,” he said. “It reduces opportunities for human error.”
Some exceptions to the new voter ID laws in effect include past history between voters and poll workers.
“There are exceptions — if you’ve been going to the same precinct year-after-year and the poll workers know you, that’s an exception. Nobody’s going to be turned away from voting if they show up at the polls.”
Warner said any issues experienced by voters can be reported to the Secretary of State’s office.
“Intimidation is just as bad as vote buying or fraudulently voting somebody else’s absentee ballot,” Warner said. “This whole process of fair elections involves a range of human activity. And we need to make sure it is clean throughout West Virginia.”
Early voting is open Oct. 24 through Nov. 3, with the exception of Sunday, Oct. 28. Polls will be open those days 9 a.m. to 5 a.m. every day with one exception. Polls will close at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 29.