Wood County IT Systems/Network Administrator Chris Whittaker conducted a test of the county voting systems Monday while Wood County Clerk Joe Gonzales and other county officials observed. Early voting in Wood County begins today. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

PARKERSBURG – The Wood County Commission oversaw the testing of the county voting system Monday as early voting will get underway Wednesday.

The county will have early voting at the Judge Black Annex at 315 Market St. from May 1-11.

Community early voting sites will be open May 7-11 at the Williamstown City Building, 100 W. Fifth St., Williamstown; the Vienna Community Building, 1301 34th St., Vienna; the Mineral Wells Volunteer Fire Department, 1695 Elizabeth Pike, Mineral Wells; and the Lubeck Volunteer Fire Department, 1340 Harris Highway, Parkersburg.

All the early voting sites will be open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays.

The primary election for West Virginia and in Wood County is Tuesday, May 14.

IT Systems/Network Administrator Chris Whittaker conducted the test before all three commissioners and County Administrator Marty Seufer as well as County Clerk Joe Gonzales, Deputy Clerk Alisha Cross, Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure and Wood County Commission candidate Roger Conley who were present to observe the test.

Officials reiterated the system is not connected into any online/internet systems.

“There is no modem in these machines,” Gonzales said.

“The best way to describe them is a tablet connected to a printer,” Cross added.

“All of the tallies are done on a separate machine.”

The test had all of the tallies starting at zero and a determined number of test ballots were loaded and counted with officials reviewing the results.

A version of each ballot for this primary was tested, including ballots for party affiliation/non-partisan votes, different local races (including city council districts, school board districts and magistrate divisions) and more.

Officials then had the tallies zeroed out with another report for county officials to review that the machines have no votes on them.

Then the machine is put under lock and key. When the system is brought out, another test will run to show no votes are on the system.

When people vote the system will print out a paper ballot the voter can review and it is put through a scanner to count the votes that person made.

The county holds on to that paper copy and those are used during the canvassing process when three voting precincts are randomly picked to do a hand count which poll workers will use the paper ballots to do the count.

On Election Day May 14, the first votes to be counted will be the early voting ballots once all the polls close.

The county will take absentee ballot applications through May 8.

Absentee ballots will be mailed out through May 8. Returned ballots have to be postmarked May 14 to be counted.