Raleigh County voters may be in a new precinct now that Raleigh County Commissioners have approved the entry of order for precinct and magisterial voting district changes.
During a special commission meeting on December 14, Raleigh County Chief Election Officer Tammy Richardson announced that 29 Raleigh County precincts would be eliminated, decreasing the total number of precincts from 87 to 58.
This allows the county to hire approximately 145 fewer poll workers during elections, Commission President Dave Tolliver stated.
Back on August 3, 2021, the West Virginia Joint Committee on Redistricting, led by Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, and Delegate Gary Howell, R-Mineral, made a stop in Beckley to discuss the state redistricting process. During that meeting, Tolliver stated that the commission had to spend over $450,000 in buying voting machines for the county because there were so many districts created following the 2010 Census.
“All we are asking for is to use common sense,” Tolliver told those on the state committee. “Common sense goes a long way. The last time it was redistricted, Raleigh County was chopped up like sauerkraut. I mean, we have 11 or 12 delegates that represent all or part of Raleigh County and that doesn’t make a bit of sense.”
“It’s ridiculous for one county to be represented by so many delegates,” Tolliver continued. “If you chop us up again, who knows how much money we will have to spend.”
Now that redistricting is finished on the state level and in Raleigh County, with fewer precincts and only five single-member delegate districts, Raleigh County officials will be able to save some money.
“You’ve done well,” Tolliver told Richardson, referencing the hard work that county officials completed to decrease the number of precincts. “Man, that’s good.”
The precincts in the city of Beckley used to be 1-20, now they are 1-13, Richardson noted. In addition to the 58 precincts throughout Raleigh County, there are two smaller sub-precincts, which include a total of only eight residents.
As for magisterial districts, nothing has changed much, Richardson continued. The only major change included the movement of about 500 residents in former precinct 85, near Shady Spring Elementary, to district 3. This leaves the total amount of residents in each magisterial precinct as follows:
District 1: 24,319
District 2: 25,084
District 3: 25,188.
“I think it’s great. They have done a tremendous job on this. It was very, very difficult and going from 87 precincts down to 58, whew. And, we were worried about 12-15,” Tolliver said.
Commissioners made the order final during their regular meeting on January 4.
To view an interactive map of new Raleigh County precincts, delegate districts and magisterial district boundary lines, click here.
For those reading the print edition, the url for the interactive map is: https://agdonline.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=b3e108cb355644fa98c35dda84145160
