BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – During this COVID-19 outbreak, you may be wondering how this will impact voting and the primaries coming up in May.
Raleigh County Clerk Danny Moore is now encouraging all voters to use an absentee ballot.
At a time when the county clerk’s office is typically encouraging turnout at the polls, this year it is different. As the state has relaxed absentee voting requirements, now everyone can vote absentee and are being told to do so.
For those of you who have never voted absentee before, Moore says the best thing to do is call your county clerk’s office.
The clerk’s office will provide you with an application that will be sent to your home to confirm your address.
Once you send that back in by the May 6 deadline, you will receive your ballot in the mail.
“There’s a form in there. It tells you step-by-step what to do,” Moore said. “It’s simple. And just mail it back.”
Moore says it will be much easier and safer than going to the polls because as of right now, the polls will still be open on May 12.
What will be harder, according to Moore, is the work of those in the clerks’ offices as they say official results this year could take days.
“It’s going to make it extremely hard. Raleigh County, we have right at 53,000 registered voters,” he said. “This is probably, was going to be, the largest election probably in recent memory. If we get the record number of votes, it is going to take three, five, six [days], who knows ever how long it takes. I am getting extra people in here. We are working full staff as we speak because we’ve got to get these out and get them in. It makes it terribly hard on all county clerks.”
Absentee ballots must be postmarked by May 12.
