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With Kanawha vote mystery solved, close races appear unchanged

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Kanawha County has solved its mystery of missing votes, and two close legislative races appear to be resolved.

On Friday, Kanawha County officials described a discrepancy of 1,700 ballots over multiple precincts. Records on paper didn’t match electronic counts.

This morning, during canvassing, elections officials said two memory sticks that stored electronic voting information had been properly retained but had not been tabulated.

“They weren’t lost, they weren’t misplaced, and they weren’t taken,” Kanawha County Commissioner Carper said.

One of the electronic voting sticks — basically a thumb drive — affected an early voting hub in the Elkview area, so votes in multiple individual precincts were affected.

The other electronic voting stick was from Election Day at the precinct at Chamberlain Elementary in Kanawha City. So that memory card affected just that one precinct but a large number of votes, 339.

County voting officials said those electronic voting records had been properly stored and secured with other voting materials at the Kanawha Voters Registration headquarters. They were located this morning.

Once the memory sticks were located, they were quickly processed.

Two races were close enough to possibly be affected.

On Election Night, Democratic challenger Richard Lindsay was believed to have defeated Republican incumbent Ed Gaunch by 288 votes for state Senate. 

Another close contest was the 36th Delegate District, where Democrat Amanda Estep-Burton was third out of three seats, appearing to finish 27 votes ahead of Republican Chris Pritt.

When the additional votes were tabulated, both Lindsay and Estep-Burton maintained comfortable leads.

Lindsay’s lead in the district that includes part of both Kanawha and Putnam counties was whittled to 109.

But very few votes remained outstanding. Kanawha County officials described about 500 provisional and absentee ballots not yet counted, but they’re across the whole county rather than the electoral district.

Few thought that was enough for Gaunch to flip the result.

Lindsay spoke to reporters and expressed confidence about the outcome.

“We still have provisional and absentee ballots to go, but I feel pretty good about where I am at the moment,” Lindsay said.

He added, “If trends continue, I think my campaign will be fine.”

Estep-Burton similarly felt good about the results as they came in. After the missing votes were tabulated, she was 44 votes ahead.

“It is still close, but it’s working out in my favor,” she said. “A little less nervous. I’m still not confident that it’s over, but a little less nervous.”

Few felt good about the vote-counting discrepancy.

“I think it’s a work in progress. I don’t know how you can have 1,700 votes unaccounted for,” Lindsay said. “That’s a pretty big chunk of the 30,000 votes in my district alone. That’s something that needs to be remedied.”

Estep-Burton shared similar observations.

“Surely we can have a better system of checks and balances to make sure the sticks are accounted for at the end of the day, and I think we need to look into making sure every vote counts,” Estep-Burton said.

“I think confidence is definitely not a word the voter is using right now because of everything that’s happened. I mean, they’ve misplaced sticks today.”

When the canvass began at 7 a.m., county officials described the two missing memory sticks and indicated they had been placed in bags with more voting materials.

But a little before 10 a.m., election officials said that hadn’t been quite right.

The memory stick with the votes from Elkview had actually been in a sealed envelope. Election officials then assured those who were gathered that there was no tampering because the envelope had been locked away.

Carper vowed improvement before the next election.

“What we’re going to do, and I’m going to require it, is what you do after an emergency. You have an after-action report and critique it,” Carper said. “You go over everything and see if things need to be tightened up.

“Of course, you can all do a better job.”





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