This is for all you Independent / Unaffi liated voters who are not registered with the Republican or Democratic parties.

The primary election will be here on May 12, and you may not be able to vote for who you want in offi ce. Why? The state GOP Executive Committee has offi - cially changed to a “closed” Republican primary for the fi rst time in over 30 years. Sources say it is to ensure that only registered party members are choosing the Republican nominees for the general election.

In recent years, if you showed up to the polls as an Independent/Unaffi liated voter, you could request a Republican or Democratic ballot, you just had to choose which one. Not so this May 12th. If you want to vote on the Republican ballot, you will have to change and be registered with the Republican Party. Why should you care? If you care enough to be a registered voter, you care enough about getting the people you want elected into offi ce. And in Grant County, that means marking your choices on a Republican ballot. Just think back to the last several elections you voted in — you requested a Republican ballot because there were few or no local names on the Democratic ballot.

Now, before all you Independents get in a huff and throw away your vote, just think about why you registered Independent in the fi rst place. For a lot of you it was the title ... INDEPENDENT. That word that says “Mountaineers are always free, and nobody, but nobody is going to tell me what to do.” And that’s just what is it — a word. Is that the hill you’re going to die on? Are you going to sacrifi ce your voting privileges because you want to hang onto a word? Up until now, most of you have been using a Republican ballot, while wearing an Independent name tag, which was necessary to vote for local candidates in the primary elections; and that’s where almost every local winner is determined, because Grant County has been Republican since its beginning.

So what should you do if you want to continue voting for Republican candidates?

1. Update your registration by Tuesday, April 21, to Republican. Go to the Grant County Clerk’s Offi ce at the courthouse or change it online at the W.Va. Secretary of State’s website, wvsos.gov. and, if you are too stubborn to change, you can request a Democratic ballot, and still continue to vote on any of the nonpartisan ballots for Board of Education, Levies, City Council, etc.

Now, if you start fl inging around the old “my vote doesn’t count anyway,” let us remind you that in the 2022 elections, the winner of a seat on the board of education was determined by four votes. Just four votes. Change your registration and live to vote in another election! Just how Republican is Grant County? This is what was found online, and to give disclosure, it comes from Wikipedia, which isn’t perfectly reliable, but here goes ...

Politically, Grant County was historically a major outlier in West Virginia. While the rest of the state did not become a Republican bastion until the 21st century after having leaned heavily Democratic between the New Deal and Bill Clinton’s presidency, Grant County has always been among the most strongly Republican counties in the country. Since Grant County was created in 1866, no Democrat has managed to receive 40% of the county’s vote in any Presidential election.

The only Republican to ever lose Grant County has been William Howard Taft in 1912 when the GOP was divided and Progressive Theodore Roosevelt claimed the majority of the county’s vote. The county’s Republican bent has held even in national Democratic landslides. Franklin D. Roosevelt never tallied more than 26.8% of the vote in any of his four successful campaigns, and Lyndon B. Johnson only managed 37.8% in 1964.

Jimmy Carter is the only other Democrat besides LBJ to have cracked the 30% barrier. Notably, in 2016, 2020, and 2024, Donald Trump received the highest percentages of the vote ever cast for a presidential candidate in this county. He held Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris to 10%, 11%, and 10% of the vote, respectively. The county’s strong Republican identity stems from its roots in the Civil War, formed by Unionist “hill farmers” in 1866 after separating from the more Confederate-leaning portion of Hardy County (wvencylopedia.org)

That should explain a lot.