ELKINS–Following Tuesday’s primary election, Randolph County clerk Brenda Wiseman said that the special voting procedures involving COVID-19 precautions was successful and she heard no complaints from residents of the county.

In each polling place, poll workers were provided hand sanitizer, disinfectant, face masks and gloves. Workers sanitized poll booths and any other shared materials between each voter use.

“We provided the masks to the poll workers so each poll worker had a mask but we can’t force them to wear the masks,” said Wiseman. “I think a lot of voters wore their masks when they came to vote, which is great. That’s what we wanted them to do.”

In addition to the added cleaning procedures, voters were given pencils with which they could make their selections on the poll booth screens. This lessened the amount of touch-contact happening on the machines overall.

Wiseman said the voter turnout for Randolph County was much higher than usual.

“It was about 41%, I believe, which is a really good turnout. I think that was because all of the absentee ballots,” she said. “As for early voting and Election Day voting, of course it wasn’t as much as normal because so many people had already voted absentee. I was surprised that we did have as many as we did go out and vote.”

Absentee ballot request forms were sent to every citizen near the beginning of the COVID-19 health pandemic to limit the amount of people voting in a polling place at a time.

As of Tuesday, 3,804 absentee ballots were requested and 3,343 have been turned in so far in Randolph, Wiseman said. Any ballots coming in must have been postmarked by Tuesday at the latest.

“We got some in the mail (Tuesday) and some in the mail (Wednesday) so those will be counted during the canvas,” said Wiseman. “We’ll have to review those and the canvassing board will have to make that final determination.”

“This is the most absentee voting that I’ve ever seen as long as I’ve been here,” she said. “In a normal election we may have 100 to 125 but never this many.”

In previous elections, absentee ballots were only available to those who fit a certain criteria, including college students, those of advanced age, or those whose employment schedule would otherwise keep them from voting in person.

On election night, those waiting to hear the poll results would normally wait inside the Randolph County Courthouse as votes came in from the various precincts. This year, eager candidates and other interested parties were asked to congregate on the lawn to promote social distancing.

“I thought there was going to be a big storm and it got really dark at one point. I thought it was going to start raining but it didn’t,” said Wiseman. “I held off and we got through everything. People brought their lawn chairs and sat outside and we had a microphone set up.”

Jeff Skidmore assisted Wiseman in announcing the results to attendees along busy Harrison Avenue.

“He’s done it for me for the last several years. He said he really liked it there. It seemed like everybody got really quiet and he could read the results out,” said Wiseman. “I was kind of worried, with the traffic going back and forth, if they’d be able to hear him but I didn’t hear any complaints.”

Attendees were not banned from entering the Courthouse throughout the course of the evening, though.

“If anybody needed to use the bathroom or if anybody needed to come inside and get something out of the soda machine, the Courthouse doors were unlocked,” said Wiseman. “I just didn’t want a big crowd of people here in the lobby… Everybody seemed to cooperate and I didn’t hear any complaints about it.”

Working on Tuesday evening to tabulate and announce results were the two Randolph County ballot commissioners, Democrat Patricia Rossi and Republican Barbara Tyre, as well as various county employees and vetted volunteers.