Election Day is different for everyone. For some people, today dawned with great fanfare — a kind of big brass band of excitement. Others awakened and heard the somber cadence of war drums in their hearts, prepared to wield their vote in this battle for democracy. Some are apathetic — just another day with the same generic earworm on repeat. Some are anxious — stress-induced white noise ringing in their ears.
But this is it. It’s the last day to vote. Go to the polls and cast your ballot; if you still have an absentee ballot, exchange it to vote in person. This is the last chance to make our voices heard in the 2020 election. (And the person who chooses not vote has no right to complain.)
Regardless of how we felt when we woke up this morning, at some point we will all feel a moment of relief. The big day is here. Our ballots are cast. We have done our part and it’s out of our hands now.
Some of us will be lucky enough to keep that feeling. Now that we have completed our civic duty, we can let it go. We can return to paying little-to-no attention to politics and go about our lives as normally as possible given the current pandemic.
For others, that moment of relief will be short-lived because now the waiting begins — and that waiting will be so much worse this year. Because we will not know the results of the election by the end of the night.
With the increased use of absentee and mail-in voting due to COVID-19, there will be thousands — possibly hundreds of thousands — of votes still waiting to be counted by the end of the night. And as much as the suspense kills us, that’s OK. Because every vote needs to be counted.
This year has asked a lot of us, and now it will ask us to have patience. We have made far worse sacrifices in 2020 — waiting a week or so for the final vote count is quite doable in comparison.
In West Virginia and in other states, absentee and mail-in ballots cannot be counted before Election Day. According to West Virginia code, some counties won’t be able to start tabulating absentee ballots until after the polls close, depending on the method the county uses to record and calculate mailed ballots. Mailed absentee ballots postmarked by today can be received and counted until Nov. 9, when canvass begins. In other words, not all ballots will be counted tonight.
According to data from the secretary of state, out of 73,151 registered voters in Monongalia County, 10,596 requested an absentee ballot and 86.7% of those have been returned. In Preston County, 2,037 voters (out of 19,869) requested absentee ballots; of those, 87.8% of ballots have been returned. In Marion County, 5,286 registered voters (out of 40,777) requested absentee ballots, of which 90.1% have been returned.
We may have reasonable expectations for the results of county elections — maybe even state elections — by the end of the night, but in 2020, nothing is a sure bet. Take election results given tonight with a grain of salt. Every vote counts and we want every vote to be counted. It won’t be easy, but we can wait.
