County courthouses in the Ohio Valley are preparing for the possible power outages to be caused by Hurricane Sandy's impact and how those outages could affect voting should power be out on Election Day.

Emergency Management Agency officials previously recommended early voting in anticipation of the storm, and officials in both West Virginia and Ohio said residents were at the polls Monday in higher numbers than some Board of Elections officials expected.

"We have seen a lot of early voting, especially in the office lately -- the last few days, Friday and today. People seem to be really coming in preparation for possibly the storm," said Diane Gribble of the Jefferson County Board of Elections.


With Hurricane Sandy expected to cause widespread power outages, the secretaries of state for Ohio and West Virginia made sure each polling location has a plan if power is out for early voting.

Brooke County Clerk Silvia Benzo said, "I've talked to the EMA director, Bob Fowler, and we do have a contingency plan in place. If it (power) happens to go down in early voting, we do have generators that are available to operate in the building here in the courthouse."


Gribble also said the Jefferson County Board of Elections has generators available.

"We're just going to have to wait and see. Hopefully it hits now, and by next Tuesday, everything's back to normal," Gribble said.

If there is no power in the buildings on Election Day, Brooke County officials said their voting machines have a four-hour battery life. In Jefferson County, officials said they would also activate battery-powered machines -- but that may affect voter turnout.

Benzo said, "We're trying to push for people to come in and early vote because we do have machines here. Sometimes there's a little bit of a wait, but it's not that long, so if people are really and truly interested, clear through 5 p.m. we'll be here."


Elections officials said they will mainly have to play by ear to see just how severely the storm affects the Ohio Valley, then that will determine how they approach Election Day.