Doddridge County BOE election up in the air after ballot error

Typically, members of county boards of education in West Virginia are elected during May primaries and take office on July 1.

The current board members in the county will serve until the November election results are certified, according to a statement from the Doddridge Board of Education.

Three of the board’s five seats were on the ballot in May. Incumbents Chad Evans, Denver Burnside and Laura Cottrill were the top vote-getters with 755, 729 and 723 votes, respectively. Bonnie Davis received 628 votes.

Absentee ballots and early voting ballots through the afternoon of May 6 contained an error that could have impacted votes, however.

The affected ballots instructed voters to vote for just one candidate from any magisterial district. State law allows up to two BOE members to serve from the same district, however. Evans and Davis are both in the Beech Magisterial District.

Once the error was discovered, the issue was corrected, and ballots for the May 10 election were correct, according to County Clerk Catee Slater.

“It was brought to my attention on that morning of May 6. By that afternoon on May 6 ... it was corrected,” Slater said.

Approximately 250 voters cast ballots before the error was corrected. There were just 127 votes separating first and last place in the BOE election.

The Doddridge County school system was not responsible for creating or proofreading ballots, overseeing voting or publishing results, and was not involved in the election contest process, the board said in a statement provided Tuesday to WV News.

“The school system has worked with its legal counsel in consultation with the West Virginia Secretary of State’s (Office) to ensure continuity of operations while this matter plays out, in particular because July 1, 2022, is fast approaching. The County Commission determined it is necessary to hold a new election in November 2022. Based on the opinion of the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office, the sitting members whose terms were set to expire on June 30 will continue to serve until members are elected and certified in November 2022,” the board wrote.

Holding the election in conjunction with the General Election will save the county the cost of a special election, according to Slater.

“By the time we would have gotten everything together and got prepared and got an election ready, it would have been close to November anyway,” she said.

Slater said the decision to re-run the election “was just the right thing to do.”

“There was a mistake. It was brought to my attention. I thought it was correct. It was ... proven to me we had it wrong. I fixed it as soon as I found it,” she said. “I want people to know we do all make mistakes, but I’m here for them and I want to do it correctly. I want to do what is the right thing to do, and this is the right thing to do. ... It may turn out the same, but the thing is, the voters know if there’s a mistake in Doddridge County or if there’s an issue, that we will fix it and we will do it right.”