CLARKSBURG, W.Va. – Today, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner says all 1.2 million registered voters in the state will get an absentee ballot application by mail in the next ten days. Voters who have previously submitted an application can disregard the mailing.
County clerks across the state have been printing new forms and fielding many questions from voters due to the change in the primary election day from May 12 to June 9.
“If a registered voter doesn’t receive an application in the mail by April 17, we ask that they contact their county clerk or obtain an application online,” Warner said.
Harrison County Clerk Susan Thomas was a guest on Talkline and said the process will not change, but the dates have changed.
“Fill out that application and mail it back to the clerk and we will send a ballot out after April 24,”Thomas said,”We cannot send any ballots out now until after April 24 due to the change in the election date.”
Voters will fill out name, address, select a party so the correct ballot can be sent and check the absentee box.
Thomas says Governor Justice’s decision to move the election will hopefully avoid a period of high virus activity and protect the health of West Virginians.
“Hopefully will cut down the in-person during early voting and election day,”Thomas said,”Even though it’s moved to June we don’t know how long it’s going to last, so we need to be prepared.”
Thomas says as the ballots are received they will be scanned and stored securely.
“We cannot start tabulating these until 7:30 election night. In order to process the large amount of ballots we will have we will start doing that as soon as we can,”Thomas said,”I can assure Harrison County voters we will store these ballots in a secure place.”
All clerks are expecting an enormous amount of ballots, but Thomas is confident it won’t slow election night tabulation too much.
“It may slow it down some, but hopefully we’ll be able to keep up with the influx of ballots we’ll be getting as we start getting them in,”Thomas said,”We can run them through the scanner, but cannot start tabulating until 7:30 election night.”
Important dates:
- The last day to register in the June 9 primary election is May 19.
- Absentee ballot applications must be received by the county clerk no later than June 3.
- Absentee ballots must be mailed and postmarked to the county clerk by no later than Election Day, June 9.