Polling Places Move Past Power Outages

​CHARLESTON, W.Va. — All 1,759 polling places in West Virginia were up and operating by midday Tuesday, even after early morning storms, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Wind gusts of up to 50 mph and hard rain knocked 10,000 Appalachian Power Company customers off-line along with Mon Power customers. The outages included several voting precincts, Appalachian Power spokesman Phil Moye told MetroNews.

“There was definitely some wind you could feel. The wind and then the rain were both driving pretty hard and it did cause us some problems,” Moye said. “Partly because we still have some leaves on the trees and so we have some problems with limbs.”

Secretary of State Deputy Legal Counsel Donald “Deak” Kersey said there was quick response to make sure impacted polling places either had power restored quickly, were brought generators or were moved.

“Precincts that didn’t open, which were like two or three, the county clerk’s offices followed the law and they put a sign on that door about coming to the county courthouse. No one was disenfranchised they had to just go up the street a little bit,” Kersey said.

Two precincts in Clay County had to be moved to the courthouse.

Moye said they hoped to have all power restored by the end of the day for residential customers.

“We moved crews from unaffected areas to areas where we had damage,” Moye said.