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WHEELING — West Virginia Republicans have started voting online to choose delegates to the upcoming state GOP Presidential Convention, and they may do so until Jan. 14.

But those living in Ohio County who didn’t register to vote in the delegate election through the Internet still have the opportunity to cast a ballot in person, as local Republican leaders have scheduled a county convention from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Wheeling-Ohio County Public Library.

Ohio County is the only county in the Northern Panhandle that will have a county convention.

Those who already registered online to vote have received in the mail the necessary voting information, as well as a username and password to access their online ballot. Those already registered to vote online won’t be permitted to vote at the county convention.

Registration for online voting also is over, so those Ohio County Republicans who do want to vote must do so in person Saturday.

Only 75 Ohio County Republicans registered for the online vote, according to Ohio County GOP Chairman Marty Wright. GOP officials in other Northern Panhandle counties could not be reached for comment on online voter registration.

Robert Fish, executive director of the WVGOP Convention Inc., said that 145 Republicans statewide cast ballots online on Jan. 1, the first day of voting and the only day for which he had totals. Fish did not have an overall number of Republicans statewide who filed to vote online.

Statewide, 1,558 people filed to be delegates to the state convention, which will take place Feb. 5 at the Charleston Civic Center. A total of 1,446 delegates will be seated at the convention.

Members of each county’s GOP executive committee, the state GOP executive committee, Republicans in the state Legislature and Secretary of State Betty Ireland are automatically made delegates to the convention, and account for the first 836 seats. The names of these delegates will not appear on any county ballot.

Who state Republicans are electing this month are the 610 at-large delegates who will fill out the remainder of the seats at the convention.

The Ohio County Convention

Ohio County will send 33 delegates to the convention. Receiving automatic appointments to the convention are 11 county executive committee members or appointees in their stead, four state executive committee members from Ohio County — Scott Reed, Elgine McCardle, Mark Seitz and Marty Wright — and state Sen. Andy McKenzie, R-Ohio.

This leaves room for 17 at-large delegates, and 24 have filed in Ohio County. As such, there is a contested delegate race.

Such is not the case in other counties in the Northern Panhandle, where fewer delegates filed than there are delegate seats. In those counties, county GOP chairmen will make appointments to fill the vacant seats, Fish said.

Votes from Ohio County’s Jan. 12 county convention will be combined with those submitted online to determine final vote totals. The top 17 vote-getters will join the 16 automatic delegates as Ohio County’s delegation.

Fish said on Jan. 15 or Jan. 16, the state GOP will announce the list of those who have been elected delegates to the state convention.

The State Convention

The delegates’ role at the Feb. 5 WVGOP Presidential Convention will be to choose the presidential candidate who will receive West Virginia’s votes at the Republican National Convention later in the year.

“The purpose of the convention is to bring about an early decision from West Virginia so that the nation can hear its input,” Fish said.

Candidates eligible to receive delegate votes at the convention are Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Fred Thompson, Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter.

Delegates were asked to identify when filing for the convention which of the candidates they would support, and they also had the option of being “uncommitted.”

Fish said 41 percent of the delegates listed themselves as uncommitted, and listings show that no one candidate has yet captured a majority of the potential delegates.

West Virginia’s delegates are set to meet the morning of Feb. 5 — “Super Duper Tuesday,” as it is being called – and a result at the convention is expected well before other states having primaries that day finish voting, Fish said.

Registration at the Charleston Civic Center begins at 7 a.m., and the convention will be called to order at 9 a.m., according to Fish. There will be about 30 minutes of preliminaries, including remarks from U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who is honorary chairwoman of the convention.

Capito has expressed a desire to remain neutral in the presidential race, and she has not filed to be a delegate, Fish added.

Beginning at 9:30 a.m., the presidential candidates or their representatives will be given 10 minutes each to address the convention.

“It should be a pretty exciting morning,” Fish said. “There will be a lot of focus on the speeches, and on who shows up and who doesn’t. This may have an effect on the outcome.”

Following the speeches, there will be an alphabetic roll call of counties, and respective county chairmen will report their county’s tally.

There will be two projection screens visible — one indicating the county that is voting and its tally, and the other listing the overall vote among candidates.

To be successful, the winning candidate must get 50 percent of the vote. If this fails to happen on the first vote, the top three candidates with the highest numbers will move on to a second round of voting.

“I’m guessing the second round will produce the result,” Fish said.

The Republican National Convention

The Republican National Convention is set to take place Sept. 1-4 in Minneapolis. The Republican presidential nominee will formally be selected at the convention.

In total, West Virginia will send 30 delegates to the national GOP convention. The first three of these delegates are state GOP Chairman Dr. Douglas McKinney, national committeeman Jim Reed and national committeewoman Donna Gosney.

Whichever presidential candidate wins the WVGOP Convention gets to select the next 18 delegates. Each of the presidential candidates already has filed their list of prospective delegates with the convention, and they have selected these delegates from among their supporters.

The last nine delegates, meanwhile, will be elected during the primary election on May 13. Three delegates will be elected from each of the state’s three congressional districts.

 

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