Fayette sees heavy turnout, smooth day

Nov. 7—Heavy turnout — spurred by above-average early voting totals — allowed Fayette County citizens to have their voices heard in the general election cycle.

"I think things went smoothly today," Fayette County Clerk Michelle Holly said Tuesday night as votes from the county's 40 precincts trickled in to the Fayette County Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building in Fayetteville. "We had a few people who didn't quite understand the clothing issue — you can't wear a candidate's stuff to a polling place — but most everybody was understanding of it when it was explained, and 'You know, could you please take your hat off?', and they did and didn't give anybody any trouble."

"There's always last-minute people (poll workers) that have an illness or something, but overall, I think we had a grand majority of the ones that we had were there, and we had some alternates this time to fill in some spots," she added. "And, it seemed as if we had a pretty high turnout, just from the phone calls that we got (from the poll workers)."

Citing a typical presidential election turnout of about 60 percent in the county, Tuesday's election came very close to that total with 59.71 percentage (15,652 ballots cast from a registered voter roster of 26,215).

Fayette's early voting total for the general election was 6,706. "I don't know that I've seen '16 numbers and of course, '20, it's a little hard to wrap your head around with everything that happened in 2020, but I'm not aware of them having more than 5,000 or so early voters."

Holly said discussions haven't been held locally regarding the need to add more early voting locations in the future. "The county commission could choose to open more early voting locations if they wanted," Holly said. "We're allowed to open (more), but that's not something we've talked about. There's a difficult balance, I think, between the convenience to the whole county — we're a large county, a large geographical area — and we see a vastly larger turnout here at the Memorial Building than we do at the satellites. The two satellites (in Montgomery and Danese) each did a little under a thousand voters apiece this time, whereas here (in Fayetteville), they did 5,000. So there's a balance there.

"We want to offer ... convenience to the people that live on the west side of the county and on the east side of the county that might not get to Fayetteville often. I think (if we did look at another location) we would look at maybe Oak Hill, southern Oak Hill, or across the river at maybe the Hico/Ansted/Victor area."

All in all, Holly was pleased. "I think it's been a really great election. The more people vote, the better, so I'm really pleased with the turnout."

Notes:

—Prosecuting attorney — Incumbent Anthony Ciliberti, a Democrat from Victor, was unopposed. He garnered 10,688 votes.

—Sheriff — Jess R. McMullen, currently the chief deputy in the Fayette County Sheriff's Department, ran unopposed. McMullen, a Republican who hails from Fayetteville, amassed 12,808 votes.

—Assessor — In the assessor's race, Harvey E. (Eddie) Young, of Fayetteville, was another unopposed incumbent. The Republican received 12,824 votes.

—Surveyor — Incumbent Jack R. Booda, a Democrat from Oak Hill, was also unopposed. Booda secured 10,694 votes.

—Also on the ballot, Amendment 1 was presented as the protection of persons against medically-assisted suicide. The measure was narrowly approved in the county, with 6,886 voting for the amendment and 6,351 voting against it.

—Fayette vote totals in two Senate races were as follows: 9th District — Brian Helton (R), 3,571; and Christy Cardwell (D), 1,339; and 10th District — Jack David Woodrum (incumbent unopposed, R), 8,027.

—Fayette vote totals in four House of Delegates races were as follows: 45th District — Eric Brooks (unopposed incumbent, R), 1,277; 50th District — David Elliott Pritt (incumbent, R), 3,899; Jerry L. Allen (D), 1,571; and Scotty Bowman, 396; 51st District — Marshall W. Clay (R), 4,857; Melissa J. Colagrosso (D), 2,382; and 52nd District — Tresa Howell (R), 113; and Thomas Jones (D), 107.

—"We had a higher turnout than anticipated," said Fayette County Commissioner John Brenemen. "Extremely happy to see the number that turned out, and I just hope it continues for upcoming elections."

—Secretary of State Mac Warner said there were 1,209,534 registered voters eligible to cast a ballot in West Virginia's General Election, and 1,657 voting precincts were open statewide Tuesday.

—For complete results, visit