Published: May 05, 2008 09:58 pm         

Early voting popular in West Virginia

Make no mistake about it — early voting is popular in West Virginia.

As of Saturday night, when the last courthouse shut down, voters taking advantage of the pre-election balloting had numbered 28,187.

Broken down, that meant 20,103 Democrats paid an early visit to the polls, while 6,340 Republicans did so, according to figures released by the secretary of state’s office.

The number also included 10 members of the Mountain Party, and 1,734 that included no affiliated parties and “all others.”

From a regional perspective, Raleigh County led the way with 1,164 voters, followed by Fayette, 701; Mercer, 688; Summers, 633; Nicholas, 476; Greenbrier, 402; Clay, 352; Boone, 300; Monroe, 265; Webster, 254; Pocahontas, 242; Wyoming, 310; and McDowell, 22.

“We’ve had little issues come up,” said Sarah Bailey, chief of staff in the secretary of state’s office.

Independents for the first time are allowed to vote for Democratic candidates but must ask for a party ballot to do so. Republicans have allowed the non-affiliated voters to participate in their primary elections for years.

“We had a couple of complaints that independents were not aware they had to request a ballot,” Bailey said.

“That’s the only thing I would identify as a problem. But I really don’t think it’s a significant problem.”

Meantime, Secretary of State Betty Ireland disclosed an upgrade in her campaign finance reporting system that allows residents to merely plug in a donor’s name and learn which candidates received money, starting at the mandatory level of $250 and up.

“This upgrade will go a long way to ensuring transparency and accountability in elections, which have been top priorities for my office,” she said.

Bailey emphasized the improvement only covers candidates for statewide offices, not district or county offices for the Legislature.

“It won’t be available as soon as a person gives money, but as soon as the candidate reports it,” she said.

Before the system was enhanced, an individual was forced to manually scan each and every report to get relevant data. Now such information is accessible by merely typing in the name of the contributor or any other desired search criteria, including the donor’s occupation, employer, city, state or ZIP code. Online searches can also be used to look for campaign expenditures, such as professional consultants or television advertising.

“The upgrade is the searchability,” Bailey said. “We didn’t have that before.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com