Panel moderator Reed Byers speaks about the importance of voting, in the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History & Education on Sept. 8. Photo by Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Far too often, the claim is made that going out and voting is unimportant, as one person’s vote cannot make a difference.

Yet, for multiple political candidates across the state, that has proven to be anything but the case.

“I ended up losing my election by one vote — I was very educated by that process,” said former West Virginia Delegate Josh Barker. “I didn’t fight it, though I did go for a recount.”

Barker, who lost his seat in District 22, now serves the state of West Virginia as a civil servant in the role of director of substance abuse, prevention and outreach at the Office of the West Virginia Attorney General.

Over in Wheeling, city council member Connie Cain was in a similarly close election last year, narrowly beating out the incumbent for the Ward 3 seat.

Ranson City Council member Stephanie Fagan answers a question, during the Future West Virginia panel in the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History & Education on Sept. 8. Photo by Tabitha Johnston

“I won my race by three votes — two of which were provisional,” Cain said. “Since the race was that close, I consider it an unquestionable fact that every vote counts.”

In the Eastern Panhandle, Ranson City Council member Stephanie Fagan found herself winning her seat by just six votes in June.

“If just six or seven people had stayed home and not voted, things would have turned out entirely differently,” Fagan said.

She herself had been taught about the importance of voting from a young age by her grandmother.

“When I turned 18, my grandmother gave me the phrase, ‘If you don’t vote, you can’t complain,'” Fagan said, mentioning a similar conversation with her grandmother, who is now 94, later led her to run for office. “I was on the phone with her one night, complaining about something, and she said, ‘Now dearie, you’re going to have to do something about it.’ As soon as I hung up, I went to look on Facebook and saw that Amanda Stroud had mentioned that she was not running for reelection and that her seat was opening up. Those two things coming together at the exact same time got me to where I am.”

Cain and Fagan agreed that had those few voters who enabled them to win chosen not to vote, their communities would have been much more poorly represented. For a time, Fagan was the only woman, and remains the only social worker, on the Ranson City Council. Cain is both the only woman and the only Black person on the Wheeling city council.

“Getting people out to vote — I wish we had a magic formula to do that, because we don’t, and it’s so important,” Barker said.

The political candidates spoke on a panel hosted by the nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Our Future West Virginia, at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History & Education on Sept. 8.