FAYETTEVILLE, WV (WOAY) – Former Delegate Elliott Pritt has withdrawn his candidacy for the West Virginia House of Delegates District 50. Under state law, the Fayette County Republican Party will not be permitted to replace him on the ballot.
The Republican supermajority in the legislature passed a law in 2024, prohibiting parties from replacing candidates who withdraw on the ballot.
“The Office of the Secretary of State serves a ministerial role for candidate filing, and has very little authority to exercise discretion in candidacy matters,” Secretary of State Kris Warner said. “The law in this instance is clear. Because the Legislature removed the opportunity for political parties to select replacement candidates on the ballot when a vacancy is created by withdrawal, there is no alternative option to replace the candidate on the ballot.”
Despite the absence of a Republican candidate, the ballot will be crowded. According to the West Virginia Secretary of State’s website, Stacey Hensley is running as a Constitution Party candidate, and Jeannie Carpenter is running as an independent.
They will join Democrat Mat Anderson and former county commissioner Tom Louisos on an increasingly crowded ballot. To qualify for the ballot, independent candidates need to get sixty signatures, which is roughly one percent of the vote in the last general election.
Pritt was arrested last month on a federal charge of enticement of a minor.
According to a federal criminal complaint, the family of a fifteen year old girl told police that she had been sexually abused by Pritt. The complaint alleges that Pritt began communicating with her on the online video game Roblox during her eighth grade year, which was approximately 2024-2025. The conversation moved to the social media messaging platform Snapchat.
Pritt eventually told the alleged victim that he loved her, and the criminal complaint alleges that Pritt was sending inappropriate messages to her by the summer of 2025. He asked her to send pictures back, and the complaint alleges “While the pictures [the alleged victim] initially sent via Snapchat were innocuous, at PRITT’s request and direction they became increasingly more explicit.”
According to the complaint, the victim told police that Pritt initiated a physical relationship with her during late 2025. Pritt allegedly would ask her to meet him in his class room at Oak Hill High School, where they allegedly engaged in sexual activity including oral sex.
The victim told investigators that it happened five to ten times. The last sexual encounter allegedly happened between December 2025 or January 2026, but Pritt allegedly continued to request explicit pictures up to July 2026.
On June 20, 2026, Pritt allegedly told the victim not to tell anyone. If she told anyone, the complaint alleges, Pritt told her “the state police show up and take your phone and mine and open up hell in our lives. And because of me it would very much not be low key. It would be in the news. It would be awful. For both of us. And I would lose my entire life.”
Pritt resigned from the House of Delegates the same day
