Welcome back to the #weeklywonk. The #weeklywonk is my weekly look at the electoral and registration stats that make up our home, Onondaga County and New York. This article mostly looks at political subdivisions that are having elections this year. However, on occasion this article will look at election related topics and opinions that shape our electoral tapestry. This is the first #weeklywonk of 2024 as I was travelling over the last few weeks representing Onondaga County and New York at the Elections Assistance Commission and NYS Elections Commissioner Association. For the first #weeklywonk of the year I will look at a recap of 2023 for Onondaga County Board of Elections and my role as commissioner.
A year of change
Two of the biggest developments at the Onondaga County Board of Elections was a change in our two biggest vendors handling our voter registration system and voting machines. In January we transitioned from our registration vendor to Hart Intercivic’s Next Vote system. Our contract was up with our old vendor, and we chose Hart during an RFP process in November. The transition took all year and started off with redistricting to implement the new County legislative districts passed in late 2021. Even though the lawsuit to challenge these lines was still underway the new lines were in place for the 2023 election.
The transition to our new voting machines took longer. The RFP for the new voting machines had to wait for several vendors to have their new equipment certified by NYS Board of Elections. Onondaga County approved a $3 million dollar capital project to replace our aging 15-year-old image caste systems, An RFP involving four different vendors in May resulted in an award to Clear Ballot system. However, we had to wait until August for the final certification to come. Onondaga And Oswego Counties were the first counties in New York State to roll these next generation machines out in 2023 and they were a phenomenal success in the General Election.
Another major change was expanding to full on-demand printing with our poll book vendor Knowink systems. In 2019 Onondaga County chose Knowink as our poll book and on demand printing vendor with the adoption of Early Voting. The need to print ballots on demand was a necessity for Early voting as voters from all over the county could show up. Over the next few years, we experimented implementing on demand in our largest Election Day sites. In 2023 we decided to go full on demand. All 72 polling sites for our June primary and 145 polling sites for the General Election. For the most part it was a successful roll out and will be perfected in 2024.
I expanded beyond my state roles to national groups.
I have served as Democratic Caucus Chair for the NYS Elections Commissioner Association since 2017. In that role I have worked with NYS legislatures to help shape policy and testified during the NYS budget process as well. I travelled to Albany several times for educational days to represent my caucus and its wishes for legislation changes. Some of the items we asked for that were enacted was $10 million in capital funding, Clarity on the start of hand counting, expanded mail in balloting for New Yorkers with the Early Vote by mail, and Golden Day same day registration for the start of Early Voting. However, some goals only passed one house that would have greatly strengthened the structure and funding of County Board of Elections and that remains a top priority of 2024.
My years of work leading the caucus started to open opportunities for me on the national level. In April of 2023 I joined the “Faces of Democracy” campaign for Issue One. This campaign brings together bi partisan election officials to argue for federal funding for elections and protection of election workers nationwide. As part of this new role, I travelled to DC in June to Washington DC. Our group met with several lawmakers, and I had the opportunity to do a video interview with The Washington Post.
In July I represented New York at the first in person meeting of the Local Leadership Council of the Elections Assistance Commission. This newly formed group is also made up if bi partisan election officials with two representatives, one of each party, from NYS. The caucus chairs were selected in 2021 for this group, but the first in person meeting was this last July. We attended a briefing on participation in the 2020 and 222 elections from EAC, we also met as a group to give recommendations to the EAC on how to help localities prepare for 2024. Finally, we elected leadership to continue our work into 2024.
Finally, I was also able to join the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions (PLEJ). This new group focuses on Boards of Elections servicing areas over 300k population. In September I travelled to Los Angelos to their second in person meeting. We toured the LA County warehouse where they designed their own voting system that services nearly 2 million voters. Our conference focused on ways to service large amounts of voters with a focus on the challenges of getting funding in 2024. I am looking forward to continuing my membership in all three of these groups in 2024.
Voters reject election shenanigans and look to expand voting access.
Two major election stories in Onondaga County happened before the General Election. In June the village of Liverpool made history. After 20 years of uncontested GOP rule in the village of Fayetteville, the Democrats put candidates on the ballot and swept. A main plank in their election campaign was to look at having the Board of Elections run their elections in November. Voters overwhelmingly agreed with their position. Late in September they voted to have the Board of Elections run their elections and In June of 2024 the village of Liverpool will have a chance to vote to move their election to November going forward.
Another election in the Town of Manlius voters rejected a scheme to divide the town into wards. The Manlius GOP led a petition effort to hold a special election to alter how the Town Board members are elected. Town Board members have been elected town wide in Manlius since the founding of the town. However, since 2019 all town wide offices have gone Democrat so that the entire board is Democratic as opposed to all republican before 2019. This flip in fortunes led the GOP to try and mount a special election to divide the town in hopes of drawing a district to favor a GOP candidate. The voters turned out for a record special election that had two-hour lines to wait and vote AGAINST the proposal. The town then in the general election voted for a Democratic sweep again.
Democrats excel in general election despite low turnout lack of competition.
The 2023 General Election was maligned by Syracuse.com as the apathy election before voters ever went to the polls. However, they missed a brewing understory of Democrats doing very well in places where they were competing. Despite one of the lowest turnouts since 2015, and many offices left uncontested, Democrats picked up a ton of seats. Democrats flipped the County Clerk (though it took another 90k ballot handcount to get there), two family court seats, the supervisors in Skaneateles and Lysander, two Salina Town Board seats, and a Town Board seat in Geddes. They also held all seas they went into the election except for the Pompey town supervisor, that was an uncontested flip. Despite the large margin of the County Executive seat, it was a Democrat, Marty Masterpole, who won the most votes in Onondaga County. Still the Democrats choice to not contest 9 of the 17 County legislature seats certainly will haunt them as it may have been a chance to pick up a few seats.
That is, it for this edition of the #weeklywonk. Next week I take another look back at 2023 and analyze my website dustinczarny.com. After two years of running this informational website, I look at the metrics behind it. As always subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.
Dustin M. Czarny 