Secretary Warner Issues Information for Write-In Candidate Procedures on Election Night and Canvass

Charleston, W.Va. (WVDN) – In West Virginia’s 2026 General Election, there are eight Certified Write-In Candidates seeking election, including one statewide federal office and seven legislative offices. There are also several local offices for which local write-in candidates seek election. Certified Write-In Candidates can be viewed on the Secretary of State’s Candidate Listing page here (https://candidates.wvsos.gov/write-in). 

According to West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner, the procedures for tallying and certifying write-in votes substantially mirror the process for counting votes cast for all other candidates whose names appear on the ballot. However, there are a couple of key differences in tallying and publishing votes cast for write-in candidates.

First, only votes cast for Certified Write-In Candidates can be counted. Those candidates must have filed a Certificate of Announcement by the statutory deadline, which was September 15, 2026. Write-in votes cast for any person other than Certified Candidates must be disregarded by law.

Second, all West Virginia counties administer in-person voting with a combination of electronic ballot marking devices and hand-marked paper ballots. 

For ballots cast using a ballot marking device, write-in votes are made by a voter who selects “Write-In” and manually types the candidate’s name in the space provided using the keyboard on the machine touchscreen. Those names will be printed by the machine in plain text on the ballot onto the paper ballot issued to the voter.

For hand-marked paper ballots, the law requires voters to fill-in the designated “Write-In” oval and manually print the write-in candidate’s name in the space provided for the specific office. If a “Write-In” space is not provided, the law also allows voters to print the write-in candidate’s name anywhere on the face of the ballot, so long as the name is legible and does not interfere with any other race.

Third, because of the different means that write-in votes can be cast, not all write-in votes are tallied in the same manner. For write-in votes cast using a ballot marking device, county election officials have a variety of electronic options to print reports, lists, and even view images of each ballot that contains a write-in vote. For hand-marked paper ballots, county officials must manually review each hand-marked ballot to determine whether a voter printed a Certified Write-In Candidate’s name on the ballot or in the space provided.

Importantly, for all methods of voting, according to W. Va. Code § 3-4A-27, ballots containing write-in votes will be manually tallied by county election officials, and the vote tallies are to be released with the unofficial results for all other candidates on the ballot on election night.

Procedurally, because of the variety of methods of casting votes for write-in candidates, the counting process for write-in votes requires manual review. While votes cast for official candidates whose names are printed on the ballots will be tallied on election night electronically, the voting systems cannot ascertain “voter intent” for write-in votes, which is why they require manual review.

By way of example, for a Certified Write-In Candidate named “John Smith,” a write-in vote cast for “J. Smith” or “John Smyth” may be counted, but only because election officials can ascertain the voter’s intent was to vote for “John Smith.” A voting machine, however, cannot make such a judgement call.

Therefore, on election night, votes cast for write-in candidates are likely to take longer to tally than votes cast for candidates whose names are printed on the ballots. Additionally, due to the manual nature of the process, unofficial results for write-in candidates are available on election night only directly from each county clerk’s office.

After election night, all ballots are secured for Canvass that begins the Monday following Election Day. During Canvass, the Boards of Canvassers will review all ballots that were not counted on Election Day, which could include additional votes for Certified Write-In Candidates. Examples of later-counted ballots include absentee-by-mail ballots postmarked on or before Election Day but received afterwards, and provisional ballots that were challenged on Election Day.

Once the additional ballots have been reviewed and counted at Canvass, those totals are added to the unofficial results from Election Day and declared by the Boards of Canvassers. Following a 48-hour period, the Boards of Canvassers may certify the results and make them official. Once results are certified, the Secretary of State’s Office receives the official records that can be published online.

Given the heightened public and media interest in Certified Write-In Candidates seeking election in the 2026 General Election, the Secretary of State’s Office directs the public and media to the County Clerk Directory (https://sos.wv.gov/west-virginia-county-clerk-directory) hosted at GoVoteWV.com. The contact information in that list may be used to request unofficial write-in votes, as well as other unofficial results, from the county clerks’ offices on election night as the votes are tallied and reports published throughout the night.