A few days after the May 10 primary, Katrina Lewis, an assistant principal at Wheeling Park High School, found out that she may have won the race to become a delegate to the Republican National Convention.
She was contacted by Donald Trump's West Virginia campaign co-chair Mike Stuart, then by a reporter. Then nothing.
"I don't know what's going on," Lewis said.
Lewis would be the 22nd at-large delegate to the convention if the results - marked by a green box labeled "official" - hold.
But the secretary of state is still waiting on certified results from 14 counties before the results are finalized.
Those counties have less than a week to certify their election results.
The wait has left Lewis and other potential delegates to the Republican National Convention in July in limbo.
"I've not made any travel plans because I don't know what to do," Lewis said. "No one has contacted me whatsoever."
Lewis' wait comes as a result of a plodding process to certify election results in West Virginia.
On election night, counties tally up their votes, either by hand or with machines, and send the results to the secretary of state. Those results are the "unofficial results" that the secretary of state posts on its website.
Then, five business days after the election, each county holds a canvass where they count provisional ballots. By the end, counties can "declare" a winner of a race.
That's followed by a 48-hour waiting period, during which candidates have a chance to ask for a recount.
This is where the process begins to slow down.
If a certain race spans more than one county, say a Delegate District that covers both Kanawha and Putnam counties, the 48-hour waiting period doesn't begin until both counties have finished their canvass. If one county's canvass takes longer, it delays the canvasses of other counties that may be located in the same district.
After the waiting period, the counties have to certify results within 30 days of the election. Many certify at their regularly scheduled County Commission meetings, some call special meetings just for the sake of certification.
Once the results are certified, they're sent to the secretary of state for approval.
"All of these intricacies in the code line up and you see it become more of a waiting period," said Secretary of State Natalie Tennant.
The wait for official results is similar to the delay people find when turning to the secretary of state's elections results page on election night.
On May 12, two days after the primary wrapped up, the secretary of state's elections results page only had preliminary results for 31 counties. By that time, The Associated Press had 99 percent of the results in.
A lot of the speed, or lack thereof, can be attributed to the way the two places receive the vote totals. On election day, the AP sends a stringer (someone paid just to report election results) to every county courthouse in the state. That stringer gets vote totals as the counties count the ballots, then reports those totals back to the AP's election headquarters at regular intervals throughout the night.
Instead of getting updates throughout the process, the secretary of state is simply faxed or sent the results after the ballots have been counted, often after 11 p.m.
"Ours is official," Tennant said. "We're putting those numbers out there and making sure they are correct."
Tennant did say a faster process should be considered. She said a law that requires the counties to submit results every 15 minutes when they are counting ballots could help her office distribute results faster.
"We need to have some requirement of reporting on election night," Tennant said.
That could be problematic for the counties. While there's an online system where counties can report results, Kanawha County Attorney Marc Slotnick said that the program is sometimes unreliable. Other counties opt out and report results by fax or in a PDF document.
The long wait to find out who among the 220 at-large delegate candidates to the Republican National Convention has left the Republican Party frustrated.
"We have several things that we need to do in advance of the national convention," said Conrad Lucas, the Chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party. "So we need to know as soon as possible."
The Republican Party is not entirely without blame. One of the reasons for uncertainty over who won comes from rules limiting delegates based on where they live. But Tennant said that she understands where the party is coming from.
"I understand their frustrations," Tennant said. "And that's what frustrates me too."
She added that she can't give an official announcement until she has the certified results from every county.
"Right now with the structure under state code, there's not a lot that I can do," Tennant said.
That doesn't help Lewis, who still has to figure out her plans for Cleveland. Though, if she does officially win delegate, she has a place to stay.
"My relatives who live up there said I can stay with them," Lewis said.
Reach Daniel Desrochers at
dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4886 or follow
@drdesrochers on Twitter.