ELKINS — Randolph County has applied for a grant to lease a scanner to count absentee ballots in the general election in November.

Randolph County Clerk Brenda Wiseman’s office staff had to manually count the absentee ballots for the primary election in June, which totaled almost 4,000 ballots, she told the Randolph County Commission during their most recent meeting.

“It was very time consuming,” she said.

The state is “suggesting we get a scanner to scan those ballots when they come back” for the general election, she said. “It collects the votes onto a jump drive, then we put that into our computer to get those results.”

If an absentee ballot is received that is wrinkled or otherwise unable to be scanned, it can still be counted manually, Wiseman said.

Wiseman asked for permission to apply for a grant from the Secretary of State’s Office for $2,895 to lease a scanner, which would only be used for the general election. The commissioners unanimously approved applying for the grant.

Wiseman also notified commissioners that the county will receive a grant for $302,138.70 to be used to help purchase new voting machines, which will be used beginning next year.

She also explained how the absentee ballot process will work for the general election.

“The Secretary of State’s Office is not going to send out the postcards to every registered voter as they did in the primary,” Wiseman said. “Everyone can still request an absentee ballot. We will still be sending those out. It’s just the people have to request them this time.”

She said voters can request an absentee ballot by going to govotewv.com. Absent applications are currently being accepted, and will be until Oct.28.

Wiseman said her office currently does not have any absentee ballots, and will not receive any until about Sept. 18. Her office will begin “mailing them out towards the end of September,” she said.

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The Randolph County Commission has accepted a bid for roof repairs to the historic Randolph County jailhouse facility.

The only bid received was from Forbes Copperworks LLC in Lewisburg, for $150,390.

The company previously provided renovations to the Randolph County Courthouse roof “and this is a little bit less expensive,” Commissioner Mark Scott said.

Randolph County has received a $100,000 Courthouse Facilities Improvement grant for the project, the third year in a row the county has received the maximum grant.

The project will involve taking the roof’s original tiles off, numbering them, cleaning them and putting them back. No synthetic tile is available to replace the jailhouse roof’s tiles, commissioners said.

The bid was approved unanimously.