MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The 2024 general election in Monongalia County generated 41,749 ballots totaling a voter turnout of 63.9 percent.
In the 2020 general election 42,503 ballots were cast from a possible total number of registered voters of 74,516 equaling a voter turnout of 57.04 percent.
The 2024 turnout percentage was calculated with a total of 65,330 voters. Since 2017, more than 400,000 records have been purged by the Secretary of State’s office due to death, moving away, or inactivity while 330,000 new names have been added.
Monongalia County Clerk Carye Blaney said this was an exciting election period that has required a lot of effort but has generated a robust participation. She said there no significant problems during the ten day early voting period or election day.
“We had a tremendous turnout, not one of our highest turnouts but it was a big turnout none the less,” Blaney said. “The weather stayed perfect, the precincts ran well, we moved votes in and out, no lines, and no complaints.”
The saturation of “get out the vote” messages worked in Monongalia County with 1,000 first timers to the voting booth. Blaney credited the ground work done ahead of the election with voter registration and verification efforts leading up to the election.
“We had over 1,000 first time voters in this election, so they need to be applauded,” Blaney said. “We worked hard all summer trying to get voters to check their registrations and register by the deadline.”
Blaney said the youngest demographic in voter eligibility actually mirrored the participation levels of one of the most reliable voting blocks historically.
“The 18 to 24-year olds had almost 4,000 voters,” Blaney said. “So, that’s almost 10-percent of the voters that came out- the same as those 75 and older, so it was tremendous.”
Monongalia County Democrats retained Assessor Mark Music, Commissioner Tom Bloom, John Williams, D, Monongalia, 80, and Joey Garcia will move from the House of Delegates to the State Senate with wins Tuesday. Chairman of the Executive Committee Cal Carlson wasn’t sure if this energy can be duplicated for the midterm election in 2026.
“We’ve got a midterm election coming up and it’s hard to tell if people are going to keep this excitement going or what’s going to happen,” Carlson said.
Vice Chair of the Monongalia County Republican party, Paula Martinelli said the increased number of GOP registrations is evident in the voting totals across the Tuesday ballot.
“We made a very good showing and I think that the increase in Republican registrations in the county is very evident in the results,” Martinelli said.
Voters in the town of Granville have approved the proposal to align their elections with state and county elections. The town will hold their elections as normal in June of 2025 and winners will serve one year and all seats will go back on the ballot in May of 2026 for traditional two-year terms.
On Amendment 1 relating to physician assisted suicide, Monongalia County voters were 14,010 for and 23,148 against. The majority vote against means Monongalia County voters agree with excluding physician assisted suicide from the constitution. It remains illegal, but a future group of state lawmakers could change that.