By Greg Jordan, Bluefield Daily Telegraph
PRINCETON, W.Va. — Voting for the May 14 Primary Election officially starts today in West Virginia as qualified voters who have applied for an absentee-by-mail ballot will start seeing those arrive at the addresses they provided on their applications.
For active duty military on deployment, voters living overseas, and those who are stateside living with a physical disability that prevents them from in-person voting and absentee voting without assistance, Friday is also the first day county clerks will begin providing them the means to participate via electronic means prescribed by law. To date, nearly 1,200 voters have applied for an absentee ballot, according to the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office.
“West Virginia law permits absentee-by-mail voting for voters who are not able to vote in person during early voting or on Election Day,” said Secretary of State Mac Warner. “The excuse-based alternative to in-person voting is available to registered voters for causes such as illness, disability, hospitalization, military deployment, and work-related or personal travel.”
“In West Virginia, we have more options for participating than any state in the country,” Warner said. “We want voters to vote.”
Registered voters can call their county clerk’s offices to apply for absentee ballots.
“WV Code dictates that we start mailing out absentee ballots tomorrow,” Mercer County Clerk Verlin Moye said Thursday. “We haven’t received our ballots yet but I’m sure we will. Tight schedules are common during elections.”
