Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day and recent West Virginia election numbers show every vote does count. As election day approaches, nearly 100 voter registration drives are underway throughout West Virginia.
Secretary of State Mac Warner is personally leading drives in high schools, targeting the 18 year old demographic that historically has low turnout numbers. He said he likes to tell stories to the students.
“West Virginia has a unique history. The youngest legislator ever elected to office in the United States was Sarah Blair who started serving at the age of 18,” Warner said. “Caleb Hanna, the youngest African American elected in the history of the United States was right here in West Virginia. Those are dynamic stories and when those students hear that, they think ‘if they can do it, I can do it’. We want to pull them into the government and the civic discourse that they’re educated in when they go to vote, and perhaps even see themselves participating in an elected office at some point.”
Warner said the recent primary demonstrated the ‘win or lose’ weight that a single vote carries.
“We had 43 races in the state of West Virginia that were decided by less than 10 votes in the primary,” Warner said. “When you hear every vote counts, those are examples that it does count.”
Warner said with recent state redistricting, counties are still making precinct adjustments and if you have any questions, contact your county clerk’s office now.
“We’ve gone to a single member house of Delegate districts, so a lot of lines on the map were changed. The U.S Census caused us to lose a congressional seat so those lines were changed. There are some moving parts that have occurred this year alone,” Warner said. “They may be affected in where they vote, and all that information is available at GoVoteWV.com. That’s the one website that has all this election related information. You can register, you can change your registration, it can tell you where you’re going to vote, and tell you all those key dates.”
October 18th is the last day to register for the November 8 election.