LOGAN - Mary Craddock's voice got louder and louder the longer she explained her reasons for coming to the Logan County Courthouse on Tuesday.
Craddock was there to watch arguments in an election contest filed by Logan Circuit Judge Douglas Witten, who believes the May primary election results should be overturned so that he can remain judge.
Witten lost his bid to remain judge by 59 votes to Joshua Butcher. And in a seldom-used procedure, Witten filed a petition with the clerk of the state House of Delegates, in an attempt to overturn the election results.
Witten was appointed last year by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, who is from Logan County, when former Logan Circuit judge Rodger Perry retired. Butcher is Perry's former law clerk.
Craddock has known Butcher since he was just days old. She said Tuesday she wants to make sure her vote was heard.
"The voters of Logan County have spoken," said Craddock, of Henlawson. "We voted for Josh Butcher, plain and simple."
The three people who will rule on the petition - one chosen by Witten, one by Butcher and one by Tomblin - heard arguments in the case Tuesday and asked lawyers for Butcher and Witten to submit proposed findings and conclusions, before they will issue a ruling.
Charleston lawyer James S. Arnold was chosen by Tomblin to serve on the panel; Witten chose John Counts, who served as treasurer of Witten's campaign, and Butcher chose Booth Goodwin, who stepped down as U.S. attorney at the end of 2015 to run for governor in the Democratic primary.
Witten's lawyer, Harvey Peyton, told the panel that 10 more ballots were cast on May 10 at the Bulwark precinct than the number of voters who actually showed up to vote and signed the poll books.
Also, votes cast at a precinct in Sharples shouldn't be valid since poll workers didn't take an oath before working the election, Peyton said.
Logan Clerk John Turner testified Tuesday that the missing signatures was nothing more than a mistake. Also, he said that all poll workers took their oath but that some might have misplaced the paperwork proving it.
Turner testified that officials from the secretary of state's office told him that neither omission would justify overturning election results.
Peyton and Witten accused poll workers at the Lane precinct of failing to accurately measure the distance from the polling place to the "no electioneering" sign.
Bill Barker, who has overseen voting at the Chapmanville bus garage in the Lane precinct for the past 25 years, admitted on the stand Tuesday that he didn't do any measuring on primary election day.
But that's because "we've done it a thousand times," Barker said. He said by now he knows exactly where the "no electioneering" signs must be placed.
Witten alleges Butcher's wife, Jamie Butcher, stood within 300 feet of the entrance to the polling place at Lane and intimidated voters.
Jamie Butcher has said that's not true. Ryan Donovan, who is Joshua Butcher's lawyer, says that surveillance video from outside the precinct proves it's not true.
Donovan and Butcher have called the petition frivolous.
Witten on Tuesday morning withdrew parts of his petition claiming that the results should be overturned because voters were wrongly influenced by an attack on a state Senate candidate in the days before the election.
Richard Ojeda, who was running for the seat held by Sen. Art Kirkendoll, D-Logan, was beaten at a cookout two days before the May 10 election. Ojeda was knocked unconscious and his face was fractured in eight places. He said he believed the attack came because he had spoken out against corruption in Logan County, and he defeated Kirkendoll - who was a county commissioner for 30 years before moving to the Senate.
While standing outside a courtroom Tuesday, Harvey told the Gazette-Mail that the claim that made reference to the attack on Ojeda would have been hard to prove.
Harvey said the main thing the panel must decide is whether the election law violations he says occurred are enough to overturn the results.
If votes Witten challenges are disregarded, his petition states that the final vote would end up in his favor with 4,351 for him and 4,330 for Butcher.
"There were violations," Harvey said. "It's a slippery slope when you start saying, 'Well, those are violations of the law but they're not that bad.' What is the objective standard that you apply?"
Judicial elections in West Virginia are non-partisan for the first time this year, meaning the winner is elected in the primary.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.