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West Virginia Primary Turnout Below 2016 Numbers

Gary Diehl of Wheeling Island exits Madison Elementary School wearing a mask after casting his vote Tuesday.

WHEELING — Overall voter turnout across West Virginia for Tuesday’s presidential primary election was below that of 2016 numbers despite all registered voters in the state receiving absentee ballot applications.

State-wide turnout for this week’s election was 35.63 percent — down from 39.9 percent four years ago, according to data compiled by the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office.

Numbers show that 438,104 of the state’s 1,229,616 registered cast ballots in Tuesday’s election.

Final numbers on the number of absentee ballots submitted for the election are not yet available.

But the Secretary of State’s Office has reported that as of the close of business on June 4, a total of 262,441 voters had applied for an absentee ballot. Of those, 191,346 had already returned their completed ballots.

Locally, the highest turnout was in Wetzel County, where 44.56 percent of registered voters cast ballots. In 2016, the turnout in Wetzel County as 44.2 percent.

The county with the second highest turnout was Tyler County, which had a turnout on Tuesday of 40.87 percent. This compares to 41.5 percent four years ago.

Ohio County’s turnout was 39.98 percent. In 2016, that rate was 44.4 percent.

In Marshall County, 39.04 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the primary election. This was down from 46.4 percent in 2016.

Brooke County had a turnout of 33.15 percent, just slightly below the 2016 number of 33.7 percent.

In Hancock County, turnout was 30 percent. The county had a 33.2 percent turnout in 2016.

Most elections officials had suspected turnout numbers would be higher with this election, and registered voters being mailed absentee ballot applications.

“Maybe with the coronavirus scare people were afraid of going to the polls,” Marshall County Clerk Jan Pest said. “They didn’t trust absentee ballots, but they still didn’t want to go to the polls.”

Wetzel County Clerk Carol Haught said voters had more of an opportunity to vote in this election than in past years.

“We were looking for it to be higher, too,” she said of voter turnout. “It was particularly easy for voters. I don’t have a reason.”

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