|Photo by Emma Delk| Marshall County Clerk Connie Howard said the ballot mistake in Precinct 7 has impacted 63 early voters.

One Marshall County voter caught a mistake that would have impacted the ballots of more than 300 voters in Precinct 7. As it is, 63 early voters in the precinct have the opportunity to vote on a Moundsville City Council ward race that was mistakenly left off the ballot.

An early voter in Precinct 7 who cast their ballot on Wednesday went home and realized the Ward 1 Moundsville City Council race was missing on their ballot. After the voter contacted the Marshall County Clerk’s office, County Clerk Connie Howard immediately checked the Moundsville Council Ward map and realized Precinct 7 was in the boundaries of Ward 1.

Howard then called Moundsville City Clerk Sondra Hewitt to compare their council ward maps. Hewitt confirmed Precinct 7 was part of Ward 1, meaning the council race was missing from the ballot.

Before the mistake was caught, 63 voters in Precinct 7 had cast their ballots.

“The voter was correct, and Ward 1 has been missing from the Precinct 7 ballot machines,” Howard said Thursday. “It got missed during numerous checks.”

The Marshall County Clerk’s Office then contacted WV Secretary of State Mac Warner; the company that runs Marshall County’s tabulator and voting program, Election Systems & Software and the company that burns their voting machine flash drives.

According to Howard, county and city officials determined the “best way” to resolve the issue would be to contact the 63 voters who cast their ballots without the Ward 1 council race and have them vote a separate paper ballot for the Ward 1 council race. The paper ballot will be sealed and hand-counted on election night.

The 63 voters can go to the Marshall County Courthouse to cast their Ward 1 council race paper ballot, or an election official will go to their house to have the voter fill out the paper ballot.

“We’ve been reaching out to those that gave us their phone numbers and working with Sondra [Hewitt] to contact them by phone,” Howard said. “We were on the phone all day [on Wednesday] trying to fix it. We’ve left the voters a note to let them know we tried contacting them, and we’re happy to go to the voters’ houses with a paper ballot to fix it.”

County and city officials also determined the rest of Precinct 7 voters will cast a separate paper ballot on Election Day for the Ward 1 council race instead of attempting to add the Ward 1 council race to the electronic voting system.

Precinct 7 voters cast their ballot at Central Elementary School. Howard said any voters in the precinct will now receive a separate ballot with only the Ward 1 council race. The paper ballots will be hand-counted separately on election night and added to the total vote count for the Ward 1 council race. Precinct 7 voters will vote for all other races in the election by machine.

“We’re trying to reach out to the public so these 63 voters know what happened and can vote in the Ward 1 race,” Howard said. “Some of the voters have already been in to vote on the race, and we will try to reach out to the rest of them to make amends. We’re still in the middle of calling them, and I wanted the public to be aware so there are no surprises when they go to the precinct on Election Day.”

Howard contributed the mistake to Precincts 6 and 7 being merged four years ago due to the declining number of voters in Precinct 6. Before the merge, Precinct 6 voted on the Ward 1 council race, but Precinct 7 did not.

“It makes sense how it was missed, but the most important thing is to correct it,” Howard noted.

Howard said the 2024 general election was the first time Ward 1 had an election after the merge. Ward One’s inclusion on the Precinct 7 ballot was missed during “multiple checks” of the ballot.

“The ballot goes through our commissioners, the county clerk’s office personnel, the City of Moundsville and I ultimately signed off on it, so it was checked four times,” Howard noted. “It’s just because this is the first election where the precinct was merged. I understand how this got missed because we didn’t remember merging those precincts four years ago.”

Howard noted that the Central Elementary School poll workers were being brought to the County Clerk’s office on Thursday to be informed of the mistake and the additional paper ballot that will be handed to Precinct 7 voters on Election Day.

Howard noted that the voter caught the mistake seven days into early voting. Marshall County early voting closes at 5 p.m. on Saturday.

“Everybody wants to run a perfect election, but things do happen, and the most important thing is to figure out how to resolve it quickly,” Howard said. “Thanks to this voter, this was discovered seven days into early voting. All our poll workers at Central Elementary School know they have an extra step on election day now.”