Welcome back to the #WeeklyWonk. Each weekend I release an article on a subject relating to elections in Onondaga County and New York State. Often these articles will have detailed stats to consume but sometimes they will be a recap of a prominent issue or on relevant election law. I am turning my eye to the 2023 elections. This week I take a break from looking at the political subdivisions and focus on breaking down the 2023 Primary Election This is the first of a two-part series focusing on all aspects of the 2023 primary. This week we will focus on Early and Absentee voting and next Election Day and Overall Turnout.
The June 2023 primary was smaller in scale than most primaries. Only Democrats in the City of Syracuse, Republicans in the Towns of Pompey and Salina, and Conservatives County wide. 1,113 Voters checked in to vote Early in the 2023 primary. 925 Democrats, 153 Republicans, and 35 Conservatives showed up to the five open Early Voting sites. Since the primary was smaller in scope both in number of voters and geographic locations. The three locations in the City led all Early Voting with 414 voters going to Armond Magnarelli Center (37%), 264 at Syracuse Community Connections (24%), and 233 at Beauchamp Library (21%) The suburban sites did not do as well with Salina Town hall chosen for proximity to the GOP primary there having 150 voters (11%) and Lafayette Fire station just next door to the Town of Primary at 52 voters (5%).
Diving into Early Voting by site we can compare how the sites do over time. As noted above Salina Town Hall appears as a site for the first time. It essentially took the place of Lysander Town Hall as the Northwest suburban EV site, so their figures are listed there. Traditional EV sites Clay Town Hall and Dewitt Town Hall were not opened for this action as newer sites like OCC Mulroy Hall and North Syracuse Community Center were closed as well. The difference in the 2021 primary and 2023 is the three City sites spread the small voter load out more equally. Even so the Armond Magnarelli center leads city sites in every Primary election we have had.
When looking at Early Voting it is important to now just look at the raw numbers but compare it to similar elections. We have now had five primary elections with Early Voting and 2023 1113 voters is bigger than the similar primary in 2021, though the 2023 primary was the least populous in terms of eligible voters. However, when you look at the percentage of the voting population Early Voting continues to grow. In 2023 15.29% of voters chose to vote early, this is the highest percentage in any primary so far. In fact, each year more of the overall turnout has been represented in the Early Voting numbers regardless of scale and scope of the primary.
One of the reasons why Early Voting is growing as a share of the population is that we are seeing more adoption of Early Voting by the GOP as opposed to just Democrats. The GOP performed better than Democrats when looking at overall voter population eligible for this election. Democrats saw a fall in participation at 2.18% of the eligible population Early Voting, down from 2.69& in the august primary last year. The GOP was just 1.92% of their voting population, which represents a rise from last year and previous years. In fact, when you look at the percentage of the turnout Democrats did have the larger percentage of the voters who chose to turnout show up at 16.65% Early Vote. However, the GOP came closer than ever to matching the Democratic voter share with 13.11% of their voters choosing to Early Vote.
The other form of pre-Election Day voting is Absentee. 2023 is the first year since 2019 where the pandemic excuse for absentees is not in effect. We only issued 1455 absentee ballots in 2023724 ballots (50%) were accepted and counted, 637 ballots (44%) were unreturned, 88 (3%) Ballots were returned undeliverable by the US Mail, and just 7 ballots returned (<1%) were rejected. Democrats dominated the absentee ballot returns with 589 ballots back (81%), Republican s returned 79 (11%), and Conservatives 56 (8%).
Absentee ballot usage for this primary in terms of actual applications received and ballots returned was one of the least in recent history. The 1455 absentee ballots issued is second least to 2019. The same is true for the ballots returned. However, when looking at percentage of actual votes at 9.95% is comparable to what the primaries were in 2022. With the pandemic easing voter’s reliance on absentees has dropped, however it is still well above the pre pandemic years of 2017-2019.
That is, it the first part of my look back at the 2023 June Primary. Next week we will look at the Election Day, Affidavit voting and overall turnouts for the June Primary. In coming weeks, I will return to the analysis of political subdivisions having elections in 2023. Remember to subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all election news and content updates.
Dustin M. Czarny 