Union County ready for election with full staff of poll workers

Apr. 23—LEWISBURG — The Union County Election Board approved 48 pollworkers for today's primary election.

At Monday's public meeting, Commissioners Preston Boop, Jeff Reber and Stacy Richards, who serve as the election board, voted to approve the list of qualified registered voters and appoint them to serve as election officers in 26 precincts. The county has 135 pollworkers, including those appointed Monday and those selected in previous elections.

It is a full complement of workers, according to Election Director Greg Katherman.

"I think it will be slow, but we'll see," said Katherman.

The election office will start opening mail-in ballots at 7 a.m. today. Ballot adjudication will start at 10 a.m. Wednesday and write-in votes and overseas ballots will be determined on Wednesday as well. Provisional ballots will be addressed on Friday, Katherman said.

Mail-in ballots are due by 8 p.m. tonight, he said.

Katherman said the county will continue with the practice of counting write-in votes for a person only if the name is 100 percent spelled correctly. The election board and office sought legal advice from Solicitor Jonathan DeWald regarding the matter.

Since each of the commissioners was running for reelection last year, the election board consisted of John Showers, Billy Allred and David Hassenplug. Under the advisement of DeWald, the board voted not to count write-in votes for a candidate unless spelled correctly. If a candidate wanted to accumulate certain write-in votes they believed were for them, they could petition the Union County Court of Common Pleas.

It had been past practice before last year's decision to interpret voters' intentions if the spelling was close. The board will review the practice "very soon," said Richards.

The commissioners are scheduled for a public meeting at 2 p.m. today followed by another election board meeting.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. today.