Early voting shatters previous records
By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The elections division staff of the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office and the state’s 55 county clerks are prepared for Election Day today, while also taking a breath after a record-breaking early voting period.
According to data released Monday morning by the Secretary of State’s Office, 310,412 West Virginians cast their votes during the early voting period that began Oct. 23 and ended Saturday, representing nearly 26% of the state’s more than 1.2 million registered voters.
The 310,412 early votes cast is also a nearly 23% increase from the total number of early votes cast in the 2020 general election, which was 253,243.
“I would say it certainly beat it by more than 50,000 voters,” said Donald “Deak” Kersey, deputy secretary of state and chief of staff. “That’s a significant increase, so I would say we shattered all the records.”
Registered Republican voters led the way in early voting, casing 143,549 ballots during the 11-day early voting period, followed by 91,976 Democratic voters, 60,194 unaffiliated voters, 1,547 Libertarian Party voters, 329 Mountain Party voters, and 12,801 voters registered with other minor parties.
“Everything that we’ve heard from the counties — and we’ve been in all 55 counties — is that things seemed to go very well and smoothly, and voters were happy,” Kersey said. “There were lines during early voting because of the high turnout, but I didn’t hear anything longer than half an hour.”
