ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Belmont County Board of Elections reported a steady stream of early voters as the Nov. 8 midterm Election Day approaches, and while it appears there will be sufficient poll workers to staff all voting locations, some infrastructure upgrades will likely be scheduled after the election.

On Tuesday, elections Director Aaron Moore said they are fully staffed with the necessary 280 poll workers– 140 Democrats and 140 Republicans– and 32 alternates signing up.

“We have people signing up daily now,” Moore said, adding they are still looking for more poll workers affiliated with a major political party, since poll locations must be staffed by workers from each party. He said training is ongoing and will continue into next week, so anyone interested in being a poll worker has time to inquire.

“We seem to have enough people who have signed up. Now that does not mean we don’t want more people to sign up,” he said. “We are still training alternates in case we have call-offs, because the election’s still three weeks away.”

During the smaller, second primary election in August, the board had reduced the number of poll workers at each location from four to three.

“We’re going back to four poll workers at every single polling location,” Moore said.

He said more than 7,000 absentee ballots have been mailed so far, and more than 400 people have voted in-person at the board office.

“It has been very steady. At no point has it been overwhelming and crazy,” Moore said. “Last Wednesday when we took it, we had over 45 mail totes that we took to the post office.”

Moore said the number of absentee ballots is about normal in a governor’s election with multiple state-level candidates on the ballot.

“It seems about average. The number will go up through the end of the month,” he said. “It’s definitely not as high as what we’d get during a presidential year.”

Moore said he has had a budget meeting with the county commissioners and the auditor. One issue addressed was the heating and cooling system at the office warehouse, which he said is still having problems.

Board member Frankie Carnes voiced the concern that the cold could damage equipment.

“We’re in danger of losing all kinds of stuff back there with this temperature,” she said.

“We have all of our equipment moved into a location where it will not be damaged, but we are having some temperature issues in the back,” Moore said afterward, adding all voting equipment is stored in a secured, temperature-controlled room. “We are going back and forth scheduling times right now for people to come out and take a look at the equipment to make sure everything’s working properly moving forward. … It’s nothing we’re too concerned about. We just want to make sure the issue gets resolved and our heating and cooling system gets back to normal.”

He said the extent of the work needed and the cost have not been determined.

In addition, Moore said a security grant from the state will allow three additional cameras to be installed in the board office. The installation will take place after the election, since the work would interfere with training 30 poll workers at a time.

The board went into a closed-door executive session to discuss matters of personnel.

The board office is located at 52180 National Road East, St. Clairsville. The phone number is 740-526-0188.