Cabell County Clerk, Karen Cole, says her
office normally spends around five months planning for an election. She says the
office is busy now preparing for two elections less than three months apart.
"One of the reasons it’s so difficult
is we’re already preparing for the general, so we’re running two elections simultaneously,
we still have the standard election laws under the West Virginia election laws
for the general that we have to meet, than we have all these for the primary,”
Cole said.
Early voting begins August 20
and will run for five days in each county.
The Secretary of State's Office
changed some guidelines for the special election. For example, counties normally
have to give voters 120 days’ notice to move a precinct. But, because there's
only about one month until the primary, counties, including Cabell, where
precincts were moved recently, are sending out cards alerting people if they have
to vote at a different precinct.
Cole says each county is required to use
the same voting method it used in the last primary, so if touch screen machines
were used in the May primary, they must be used again in August.
Cole says everything right now is
running smoothly, but she says panic will set in later.
“That’s my biggest concern right now,
getting the people properly trained at the same time as getting the equipment
checked, getting ready for the public tests that we have to have to ascertain
that everything is working properly, right now I’m not panicked it’ll be the
last two weeks,” Cole said.
In Cabell County, there are 72 precincts and
each is staffed by five people.
Cole says she has faith in her staff
that everything will work out.
“I think it will come off perfectly, but
it’s going to take a lot of man hours, it’s going to take a lot of energy and
it’s going to take a lot of working together very closely with the staff making
sure that every I is dotted and every T is crossed,” Cole said.
Secretary of State Natalie Tennant says she
won’t allow herself to think that August 28 is going to be
anything but a success.
“Yes we’re going to have our stumbles
and maybe our trips, but it’s going to take place on August 28. It’s going to be a successful election and we’re going to work well together
and look back and say we have our folks nominated. It’s now time to put them on
the ballot for the general election,” Tennant said.
Tennant says other options were considered,
but in the end, a special election on August 28 seemed like the
best option.
“We went through several different
scenarios. We thought maybe August 31; we thought maybe open
election. We thought nominations by convention. We thought whole separate standoff
election that would be in a different time period maybe even in a different
year and my reaction was we’re going to do what needs to be done and we’re
going to get it done,” Tennant said.
Tennant says any state employee who has
to work on August 28, which is a Saturday, will get credit for a State
Holiday.