About 300 votes from eight precincts in the Dunbar area were not included in Kanawha County's unofficial election results last week, county officials said Monday.
Kanawha County Clerk Vera McCormick said the uncounted votes were those of people who voted early and were from the Dunbar area. She said the incident was human error, but the oversight wasn't attributable to any one person. She said a card was left in one of the vote-counting machines in the voter registration office on Election Day.
"It was just an accident," McCormick said. "We had a roomful of people and a couple people was responsible for doing that and they just missed it."
She noted that vote totals up until this point have been considered "unofficial" anyway.
"That's what a canvass is for," she said, "to make sure everything comes together and if you find a mistake you take care of it at that time."
Canvassing was set to begin Monday, but was rescheduled for today at 7 a.m. so that all county commissioners could attend. Dave Hardy was not at Monday's meeting, and Hoppy Shores called in by phone.
Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper said the person responsible would have been a paid county employee, whether a poll worker or regular employee, hired by the clerk's office.
"Was it something sinister?" Carper said. "No. Was it human error? Yes, of course."
But he also said he has seen no similar incidents in his 20 years as county commissioner.
"There's been some ballots misplaced before," he said. "This was actually in the clerk's office itself."
McCormick said no races were close enough to be affected by the mistake.
But some races could be affected.
In the primary for the 35th House district, which covers Dunbar, the four top vote-getters in the Democratic primary face the four top vote-getters in the Republican party.
According to unofficial vote totals, Keith Pauley came in fourth place in the Republican primary, beating Matt Kelly with 2,835 votes to 2,701 votes, a difference of 134 votes.
Pauley was alerted to the mistake by a reporter. "Well, until the election is certified, it's all unofficial," he said.
"I'm working as if I'm going to the general," Pauley said. "If the result turns out differently, that's OK. That's what the voters said."
In the Democratic primary for the 35th House district, Benjamin Sheridan was reported to have received 2,893 votes, according to unofficial vote totals. Jack Rogers received 2,755, according to unofficial totals, a difference of 138 votes.
As for Republican delegates to the national convention, state Republican Party Chairman Conrad Lucas said the party had purposely not released an official list of delegates yet and had been waiting until after the canvass.
"It was because of situations like this that we never communicated any list to anybody," he said.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.