By the time people read this voting will be over and the results for some races probably announced. I’m sitting in my office pounding this out for an early deadline, so, for me, the election is still in the future; and the early voting, over 90 million nationwide, means the final results for some of the big races, like the presidential race, still won’t be known until sometime in the near future.
Summers County has 9,345 registered voters. It’s an interesting mixture of 4,252 Democrats; 2,627 Republications; and 2,475 that have registered either Independent, Libertarian, Mountain or simply have no party affiliation. Of that number, 2,772 had already voted as of Friday, October 30, Mary Beth Marritt said when I called her that afternoon for this report. Of that number, 1,126 were mail in ballots.
According to her report, 749 Democrats, about 17.5%, took advantage of mail in voting (also known as absentee voting) while only 188 Republications, about 7%, opted to vote that way. COVID-19 no doubt influenced this number but it’s interesting that more than twice as many registered Democrats opted to use the mail than those registered Republicans. Of those not affiliated with either of those two parties, 189 cast a mail in ballot. This represents about 8% of those registered voters.
Marritt’s early voters’ report is just as impressive. This report shows 676 Democrats, about 16%, took advantage of early voting, while 559 Republicans, about 21%, did the same. Those voters not affiliated with either of these two parties cast 411 early vote ballots, about 16.5%, showing that more Republicans and voters in other party affiliations prefer early voting to mail in voting.
I can’t say if that’s an impressive number, not knowing what it was in previous elections, but the combined total of mail in votes and the early voter ballots represent about 29% of the total registered voters. These ballots will be counted election night when each separate precinct of votes cast election day is tallied together for the grand total.
Seeing color in the newspaper was quite impressive. It gives the paper a nice up-to-date look.
A few weeks ago, the State Treasurer’s unclaimed property list was also included in that edition. It contained thousands of names from all over the state. With so many names it seemed reasonable to print in this column just those in the Summers County area. I was surprised at the number of names from this area that I recognized: Estate of Elsie Adkins, Hinton; Shelia K. Allman, Hinton; Ralph K. Allen, Forest Hill; Luis Armendariz, Hinton; Cedric E. Ayers, Alderson; Basil L. Basham, Hinton; Hallie A. Beasley, Hinton; Amanda Bennett, Hinton; Randy S. Burdette, Alderson; Estate of Amanda B. Cales, Hinton; Robert Bryant, Alderson; Teresa A Butts, Pipestem; Estate of Mattie Clinebell, Hinton; Ben J. Dickerson, Hinton; Lia Desimone, Hinton; Donald Dunn, Forest Hill; East River Mountain Hunting Club, Jumping Branch; Marjorie B. Eastridge, Alderson; James Eads, Hinton; Marilyn W. Faulkner, Hinton; Jo A. Fox, Hinton; Jeremiah Gillespie, Jumping Branch; Courtney N. Freeman, Alderson; Lloyd Gore, Alderson; Daniel S. Grimmett, Hinton; Ricky W. Gunter, Alderson; Estate of Marvin Grimmett, Hinton; Sara Hager, Jumping Branch; Linda Hamrick, Hinton; Don Harrison, Jr., Talcott; Mary V. Hersman, Hinton; Katherine Holt, Hinton; Russell Hoge, Alderson; Kelly L. Huff, Alderson;
Jeri Jarrell, Hinton; Marjorie B Keilitz, Alderson; Hazel M. Kincaid, Alderson; Brenda Kirby, Alderson; Charles R. Kitchens, Hinton; Janice Thomasson Law, Alderson; Jesse Lonnie, Pipestem; Kathy Lovem, Hinton; James T Lowery, Sandstone; Jewell Martin, Pipestem; Amber N. Martin, Jumping Branch; William A. McCoy, Hinton; Baryl Melson, Hinton; Sean McKinney, Alderson; Brian A. Meadows, Talcott; Pauline Meadows, Nimitz; Kevin Mills, Hinton; David Ratliff, Hinton; Lisa A. Rezzonica, Talcott; Janet L. Richmond, Hinton; Lisa C. Richmond, Hinton; Clarence L. Sampson, Jr., Pipestem; Shalom Tazewell, Talcott; Nancy Sizemore, Alderson; Anastasia Steele, Nimitz; Estate of James Stoddard, Hinton; Summers Nursing, Hinton; Jesse N. Sykesthompson, Alderson; Dennis Thompson, Hinton; Dennis L. Thompson, Pence Springs; Nancy Lynn Wamsley, Hinton; Estate of Edwin Ward, Hinton; Shirley Webb, Hinton; Clora O. Willey, Pence Springs; Madelynne Woods and Estate of Madelynne Woods, Hinton; Workwright Construction, Pipestem.
