With all of the county's 15 precincts reporting Tuesday night, Republican Bill Maloney had 616 or 47.79 percent of the votes to Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin's 537 or 41.66 percent. The Mountain Party's Bob Henry Baber garnered 101 votes for 7.84 percent, while Marla Dee Ingels, the Independent candidate, had 27 votes, the American Third Party candidate Harry V. Bertram had only 5 votes and three Write-Ins were recorded.

Voter turnout in the county of 27 percent was considered good for this obscure gubernatorial election.

That 27 percent represented 1,311 ballots cast out of 4,800 registered voters.

The long nights of waiting for human counting boards results are well behind us, as the iVotronic touch screen voting machines make tallying votes at the precincts much quicker.

The polls closed at 7;30 p.m. and the election results were in to the Pocahontas County courthouse by 9 p.m.

Deborah Hayes, Field Representative for the Secretary of State's office, visited 13 of the 15 precincts Tuesday and found only one glitch. An easily solved problem of not enough signage was quickly remedied, making for a smooth election day in this county.

As of 10:15 p.m. Tuesday night, the unofficial statewide results on the Secretary of State's website showed Tomblin in the lead with 146,780 votes or 49.33 percent of the vote; Maloney with 140,536 or 47.23 percent; Baber had 5,908; Ingels was at 2,814; Bertram had 1,096 votes and Write-Ins stood at 422.

The Pocahontas County Commission will convene the Board of Elections Tuesday, October 11, at 9 a.m. in the commission room to canvas the election results. Time will be allowed for candidates to contest the results before they are declared to be final.