Welcome back to the #weeklywonk. Each week I investigate a political subdivision or election result here in Onondaga County and sometimes beyond. I analyze electoral and registration data to illuminate how voters are behaving and interacting with our Democracy. This week I finish my two parts looking back at the April 2nd Presidential Primary. Today I will look at the Election Day and Overall turnout and how voters in Onondaga County interacted with our electoral process.
There were 11,415 ballots cast in the 2024 Presidential Primary in Onondaga County. 7,672 ballots were cast on Election Day (67%). 2,469 ballots were cast by Mail Balloting (22%). 1,201 ballots were cast by Early Voting (10%). Seventy-two ballots were cast by Affidavit voting (1%) and one ballot was cast as part of a court order (0%). Of the Election Day ballots cast 4,220 ballots were casting the Democratic Primary (55%) as compared to 3,453 ballots cast in the Republican primary (45%).
It is hard to compare primaries to each other as each primary election has a distinct set of eligible voters. The two primaries that are most similar to this year’s Presidential Primary is the dual set of primaries in June (Governor) and August (Congressional) of 2022 where both the Democrats and Republicans have choices countywide. Compared to them the 2024 Presidential primary had approximately a third of the raw voters of both of those primaries (23,272 June 2022and 26,492 August 2022). When you look at the percentage of the overall vote you can compare elections better. Only 67.19% of the voters who participated in the 2024 Presidential Primary decided to wait till Election Day. This is the lowest since the 2020 combined June primary and part of a four-election downward trend.
We had a reduced number of polling places for the 2024 Presidential Primary as we tried to get out of schools who were in scheduled session for April due to the expected low voter turnout and lack of competitiveness in the election. That meant that certain polling places had a larger volume of voters than normal because of this. Almost all Polling places in our top ten were combined with other polling places for that purpose. In fact, only three of the polling places, Bishop Ludden, Eagle Hill Middle School, and Dewitt town Hall were not combined polling places, two of them being schools we were not able to consolidate with the others.
One of the great additional data sets we have been able to get with the addition of electronic poll books is to be able to measure votes cast by hour. The 2024 Presidential Primary election followed a typical low turnout election. A slow but steady increase throughout the day till 3pm. Then we see a three hour after work dinner hour bump in activity. Then a sharp and steady decline until the end of voting at 9pm. Higher turnout primaries like the dual 2022 primaries have peaks in the morning as more voters are excited to vote and then a drop off till the dinner rush.
As hinted at last week and earlier in this article, this was an extremely low voter turnout election. The 11417 voters represented just 4% of the registered voters of Onondaga County. An additional 107,678 (35%) voters were in-eligible to cast a ballot in the Presidential Election decided not to vote. Another 186,358 voters (61%) were eligible but decided not to participate. Of the eligible voters we only saw a 5.78% turnout. When looking at the turnout in the parties, 5,026 of the turnouts was Democrats (57%) and 3,853 was GOP (43%. Voter turnout rates were both pathetically low. Democrats turned out at 5.79% and the GOP turned out at 5.62%.
Unlike in General elections, Democrats are usually more enthusiastic to vote in primaries. However, in the last three primaries the GOP voters were more enthusiastic in similar primaries. Democratic turnout this primary was slightly more enthusiastic but only by a whisker. Still, we do see that we are in a 5-year stretch of more frequent primaries for both. t. as competition among intra party factions continues.
Finally, when looking at the regional turnout, the 2024 Presidential Primary acted in an unusual way compared to other primaries and elections in general. Normally we see that turnout in the suburbs is higher than in the City of Syracuse. In 2024 April Primary the City of Syracuse eligible voters turned out at a 5.86% rate, slightly higher than the suburbs 5.76%. While it is more frequent to see this in primaries than general elections, it is usually in elections were there are Democratic primaries that dominate the turnout as the City of Syracuse is overall very Democrat.
That is all for this week’s edition of the #weeklywonk. Next week I will start to turn my attention to the political subdivisions that make up the 2024 General Election. I start with a look at New York State as a whole as we have a statewide election for United States Senator. As always you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.
Dustin M. Czarny 