By Gary Lee Stuber
The Clay County Commission met for their second regular monthly meeting on Monday, April 22, at 5 p.m. But eight hours prior to that meeting, County Commissioners David Schoolcraft, Joyce Johnson, and Connie Kinder were getting their hands dirty doing clean-up work. The Commission sponsored a highway cleanup day, both Monday at 9 a.m. and the following day. In addition to many adult volunteers, the county solicited almost 50 volunteers from the Clay County High School to do the county-wide clean up. The Department of Highways supplied the bags, gloves, even reflective vests. And they would supply the trucks that would haul away the perhaps thousand bags that volunteers would leave along the highways.
As you can imagine it is not possible to cover the more than 10,000 miles of county roads, in only two days, so only the main roads, Route 4, Route 16, and Route 36 were selected, likely because they are the roads that visitors see as they pass through our county. As commissioners Kinder and Johnson expressed, it is a shame that there are still people who throw trash from their windows as they drive through Clay County roads. Students who participated get community service hours for their efforts, hours that count toward their graduation.
The Commission took care of routine business at their Monday meeting, approving minutes, bills, purchase orders, budget revisions, invoices and a variety of wills, testaments, waivers, estates, other such tasks. They approved the Clay County Ambulance Payroll Enhancement Distribution provided by the state legislature to get local 911 employees up to par with other county ambulance authorities so that retention and hiring will be easier. They also approved Connie Truman’s, Assistant Director of the Ambulance Service, request to hire Riley Rush as an EVOC driver. They also approved Assessor Teressa Davis’ request to hire Stephanie Wayne as part-time data entry clerk.
The Commission also scheduled and then executed a public testing of the new voting machines for Clay County, prior to their use in the May 14 Primary Election.
The Commission had a busy week: two cleanup days and two days of voting machine tests. On Tuesday there was a full testing of all 33 voting machines, making sure that all candidates could get at least one vote each on all 33 machines. It was also a dry run for the public testing a day later.
This is the first time ever, in Clay County elections, primary or general, that electronic voting machines will be used to select, tabulate, and count votes. Because this is new to Clay County, one of three remaining counties in West Virginia, kicking and screaming being dragged into the twenty first century, it is not only wise to test, but prudent to demonstrate the use of these machines. Even the most non-technical among our citizenry will easily master this. Technician Michael from Casto and Harris out of Spencer, WV helped with the technical side of things while County Clerk Shelia Stone and Deputy Assistant Clerk Stacy King did the actual demonstration on the equipment. Commissioner Joyce Johnson oversaw the testing.
“First,” Michael explained, “these machines are just big pencils. They don’t have any data storage system to keep count of votes.” He holds up a strip of paper maybe four inches wide by 18 inches long. “This is blank thermal paper, like what your cash register machines run. There is a thermal printer inside of this voting machine. After a person has made their selections on multiple screens, this ‘marks’ this thermal card with their selections. So there is a paper ballot that exists. At the top is a series of bar codes, and below is their selections in English. And that stub is torn off just like in the old paper ballots. That ballot is put into a metal can and at the end of the day they are transported here where they will be read on that machine.” He points to a large machine sitting in the room. It sounds so simple.
“Poll workers will but the paper in the machine,” Shelia said, as she put the first sheet in, “At the individual precincts there are three of these machines, so several can vote at once, and there should be no long lines. There you choose Republican or Democrat. If you are non-partisan you will have to choose a party for the primary.” She selected a screen that showed the candidates, starting with President. You could vote only one vote per candidate, unless, like the school board candidates you can vote more than one. It will clearly say if that is the case otherwise you get an alert that you must choose only one. You cannot overvote. The machine will not allow it. You can leave a category blank. You can even leave the whole ballot blank. It will warn you but allow it. You advance page after page through your selections, and then come to a review page. There you can go back and change any selection. After you review you get the option to change a vote, or to print. Once your paper is printed, it is put into a canister, as it was in the past, until at the end of the day the canister is taken to the courthouse. As part of the demonstration, both Shelia and Stacy entered a number of ballots from a preprinted stack of paper ballots that allows them to be sure that all candidates get at least one vote. Where allowable, even write-in candidates can be entered on screen (not this election as no write-in candidates have registered).
Stacy entered a pile of votes on the other machine, representing early voters. For purposes of demonstration, they voted all on the machine as precinct one as every voter could be from a different precinct and the first selection for early voting would be precinct. Shelia’s stack representing a precinct on Election Day was taken to the big machine #DS450. It ran all the vote slips it was fed. It even accurately separated three blank votes. Stacy, representing early voting at the courthouse, took her stack to the taller tabulator that looked for all the world like an older video game.
At the end of all counts, a thumb drive is unlocked and removed from both machines and taken to an election dedicated computer that merges both early and election day votes, verifies the math, and generates an election report that presents on paper a lot of visual information quickly. The test worked flawlessly. After the election, the paper ballots will be locked away and kept by law for 22 months.
Michael, optimistically says, election workers could be home and in bed by 10:00 p.m. We will see, God willing.
