ELKINS — The Randolph County Commision certified the election results from the May 10 primary Thursday afternoon during a special meeting at the James F. Cain Courthouse Annex.

The certification was the final step in making the election final as commission president Chris See and fellow commissioner Cris Siler voted unanimously to approve the results.

“This is something we do after every election,” said Randolph County Clerk Brenda Wiseman. “The first thing we have to do after an election is the canvas. Then there is a 48-hour recount time period for people who want a recount. Plus any other counties that are involved in multi-county races, we have to wait for them to finish their canvases and their time period before we can go back in and have a meeting to certify and make the results official, which we did today.”

The canvassing of the votes was completed on May 16 when officials hand counted one precinct to make sure a voting machine was counting properly. Wiseman said that there were no requests for a recount during the primary election.

“There has maybe been one recount request in all the years that I’ve worked here,” she said. “Typically it has to be a really tight, close race before you get a request for a recount.”

The total voter turnout in Randolph County for this year’s primary election was just 27.94 percent.

“We had a low turnout for this year’s primary,” said Wiseman. “It was expected though, because this was an off-year election and those are always like that. When it’s a presidential election year, you always have a lot more people come out and vote.”

Wiseman and her team had the votes tallied and delivered to the public as quickly as possible on election night. Many throughout the community applauded the effort and was surprised how fast it was done.

When asked if the new voting machines that the county purchased last year had anything to do with speed of getting the votes tallied, Wiseman said, “I don’t think it had anything to do with the new machines, with the older ones we finished in about the same time. It seemed to work smoothly with both systems on election night.

“We usually don’t have any issues and we are usually out of here by 9:30 p.m., and that’s with the polls not even closing until 7:30 p.m. When there are no issues or problems we are usually pretty fast at getting the results in.”

The general election will be on Nov. 8 with the early voting period set for October 26 through November 5. Early voting in Randolph County will be held at the same two locations as the primaries — the Wees Annex in Elkins and at the Russell Memorial Public Library in Mill Creek.