CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — Natalie Tennant was the first female Democratic Secretary of State, the first Mountaineer and now the first female Commissioner of Kanawha County.

“It doesn’t feel like it happened. You know, I was waiting for the election to come and then it came and I won,” Tennant said.

It took a while for her victory to be certified after a damaged USB flash drive set the Kanawha County Voter Registration Office back. The corrupted data affected about 1,700 early votes — which led the office to manually count all 31,000 early votes and run them through the machines again to verify they matched.

“They stayed here all night, sat there all night, went through 31,000 ballots and put them back in a machine and made sure that we made that available to the public, made sure that we were transparent and made sure that we made sure ensure that every vote cast during early voting is actually counted,” said Jeremy Wheeler, President of the Kanawha County Commission.

Tennant wasn't worried because of her previous experience with elections.

“With my background as secretary of state and my work as an election specialist in elections, I knew what they were doing,” she said.

As county commissioner, Tennant wants to make sure problems like this don't happen again.

“That's why we have public testing, and that's what they do, and it's completely open. And I think if I'm there as a county commissioner and we're doing these public tests, I can make them even more interactive,” Tennant said: “Along with the county clerk, she's a leader, but I can bring my background as an election official, my background as a television reporter and use my background as a panel moderator and presenter.”

And that's not the only thing she wants to change when she takes office.

“I will also focus on child care because I know people come into the county commission office asking for funding for various buildings, structures and projects that they have. “I want child care to be on their list as part of their business plan,” she said.

Tennant says she is extremely grateful to Kanawha County for giving her this opportunity.

“I thank them for bringing me in, for sharing and for having the courage to say that I think we need to do this. And that's what we're going to continue to do, just like I'm going to do as county commissioner, and they're doing it as citizens and coming in,” she said.