MORGANTOWN — Everyone had his or her own reason for heading to the polls Tuesday for the mid-term election.
For Jason Neal, the election offered a chance to send a message to politicians he feels don’t have the best interests of working people in mind.
The 24-year-old law student said the teacher’s strike in February — which started a nationwide movement — inspired him, because for the first time he saw people who normally don’t make waves stand up for themselves.
“I’m still struck by it months later,” Neal, whose dad is a teacher, said.
Ben Maxon, 25, said he’s a regular mid-term voter and that, this election, for him, the most important item on the ballot for him was Amendment One, which would amend the state’s constitution to clarify that West Virginians do not have a right to an abortion.
Maxon said the amendment was important to him because of his Catholic faith.
Some voters, such as Teraesa Manning, voted for the first time. She said she registered earlier this year so she could vote in this election.
“I feel more educated on political matters and I don’t like where our country is going,” the 24-year-old said outside of the Erickson Alumni Center.
Manning said she was intimidated at first, because voting was a new experience, but that voting turned out to be easy.
After living in Morgantown for 42 years, Jack Pearson became a citizen this year and voted for the first time, an experience he was waiting for with “great delight.”
Pearson is in the hospital recovering from surgery and said that poll workers brought him and several others paper ballots to fill out.
“I thought that was rather impressive,” he said.
Manning wasn’t the only one who thought the voting experience was handled well. Adam Hitchcock, 21, said the first time he voted was in the 2016 presidential election and that the lines were long.
“Honestly everything was really smooth,” he said of his voting experience Tuesday.
Steve Belcher, 48, said that while everyone he’s spoken to feels this election is particularly important as a referendum on the Trump administration, he’s not sure that it’s more special than any other.
Hitchcock agreed with Belcher’s sentiment.
“In the end I’d say every election is important,” Hitchcock said.
