Fayetteville, WV (WOAY) – Fayette County voters are checking in on new equipment this election season, a change county officials say grew out of problems in the May primary.
Illegally cast ballots in that primary called into question the results of the Male Plateau District race for the Fayette County Republican Executive Committee. Fayette County Clerk Michelle Holly said the primary was closed, meaning only registered Republicans should have voted in Republican races.
“There were some non-registered Republicans that were allowed to vote in Republican race. A candidate did decide to contest that election and he was ultimately successful,” Holly said.
That candidate, William Vest, finished third in the race, which awards two seats. According to Holly, the Fayette County Commission chose to rerun that one race on the November general election ballot, where only registered Republicans in the affected precincts can vote in it.
To keep that from going wrong a second time, the county is now using electronic poll books, starting with early voting. The tablets replace the paper check-in lists.
“That will prevent that issue from happening, because then that takes the human error equation out,” Holly said.
When a voter checks in, the tablet prints a barcode. Holly said the voting machine reads that barcode and shows the voter only the ballot they are eligible for.
“There’s no personal information involved … the two machines can use that barcode to tell each other what to do,” she said.
Holly said her office also rebuilt its poll worker training to cover the changes.
“Our point was, let’s make this more successful for the poll workers, because those are the people in the polling places on Election Day. They’re the ones that are actually running our elections,” Holly said.
According to Holly, the new system will carry into the 2028 primary.
“We work really, really hard to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. Unfortunately, we are human and sometimes things happen. But I feel like we have now taken several steps to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again,” she said.
