WESTON, W.Va. — Once elections come to an end, that doesn’t mean the race is necessarily over.
The votes may have been cast and counted, but they still have to be canvassed and certified. In particularly close races, that can make canvassing, which will be going on around the area this week, a truly fascinating process.
“We’ll go back through and basically just count the ballots to make sure that the number of ballots match up to what me and the Deputy County Clerk came up with and the amount that the poll workers came up with,” said Weston City Clerk Kristin Droppleman. “All the numbers should have to match.”
While Weston’s four City Council races were all decided in near-landslide fashion, the Mayor’s race came down to just 12 votes out of the 688 that were counted Tuesday night. But even with the slim margin, Droppleman says that there won’t be enough provisional or absentee ballots to change the outcome of that race.
“Even if they were all counted, there weren’t enough that it should change the outcome,” said Droppleman.
The Canvass Board will take a look at what the poll workers came up with between absentee ballots, provisional ballots, early voting, and votes cast at the polls. Those numbers then will need to match what the City Clerk and the Lewis County Deputy County Clerk came up with.
“They’re going to make sure their numbers match what we came up with and what the poll workers came up with,” said Droppleman.
Elsewhere, this process could wind up making a difference in outcome. Burnsville and Monongah each had election-night winners who only won their seats by two votes. In Marlinton, the final seat on town council actually came down to a tie between two candidates.
After canvassing, elections can’t be certified for 48 hours.