According to the Secretary of State’s Office, more than a quarter of registered voters in West Virginia cast their general election ballot in person during the early voting period.
According to the data — which includes all ballots cast in person through Saturday, the last day of early voting — more than 310,400 West Virginia residents voted in the weeks and days leading up to Election Day, Tuesday. Early voting dates are preliminary and could change once results are finalized by county officials and the Secretary of State’s Office.
Nearly half of the state’s in-person early voters — about 46% of them — are registered as Republicans. Nearly 30% of early in-person votes came from Democrats and about 19% from independents.
Monongalia County had the highest early voter turnout of all 55 counties in the state at 37% registered voters According to the data, people voted there before election day. Of those voters, about 39% were Democrats, nearly 37% were Republicans and 22% were independents.
McDowell County had the lowest turnout in the state for early voting, with only 815 people — about 7% of all registered voters in the county — voting before Election Day.
Statewide, in 19 counties, more than half of the first in-person votes were cast by registered Republicans. The highest Democratic turnout, however, was in McDowell County, where nearly 47% of people who voted early in person were registered as Democrats.
The highest Republican turnout was in Grant County, where nearly 77% of all in-person early voters were registered Republicans. The lowest Republican turnout was in McDowell County, where about 27% of first-time voters were Republican.
Among independent voters, turnout was highest in Jefferson County, where about 28% of those who voted early in person were not registered with a party. Pocahontas, Hardy and Morgan counties followed Jefferson, with about 26% of their early in-person voting coming from independent voters, according to the data.
Postal voting
The early voting data above does not include those who voted by mail. In West Virginia, that’s just certain people justified Absentee voting, including people who are on military duty or traveling, first responders who cannot vote in person due to emergency calls, and people with restricted mobility or illness, as well as people in prison who have not been convicted of a crime.
According to the secretary of state’s office, approximately 26,300 mail-in ballots were requested for the general election, representing just over 2% of all registered voters in the state.
So far, 82% of those who requested mail-in ballots have returned them. The last day a mail-in ballot was returned was Monday, meaning the return rate could rise as counties report more to the secretary of state’s office.
Of the ballots returned Monday, nearly 44% were from Democrats and 37% were from Republicans. Independent voters accounted for about 15% of all mail-in ballots returned to the state so far.
According to the data, absentee voting was most common in Calhoun County, where nearly 6% of registered voters have returned absentee ballots to their county clerk so far.
Polls for the general election will be open Tuesday, November 5, from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. To find your polling place, check your registration, view a sample ballot and more, visit https://sos.wv.gov/elections/Pages/GoVoteWV.aspx.
West Virginia Watch will have full coverage of the election on Tuesday. Check out ours Voter’s Guide for the 2024 General Election Before you cast your vote, learn more about the candidates and the positions they are running for.
Be sure to bookmark and follow ours Decision 2024 Page for updates and results on Tuesday and subsequent days.
