In the past, absentee ballots were an excuse-based system for voters who were sick or unable to be in Onondaga County on Election Day, said Dustin Czarny, an Onondaga County elections commissioner. New legislation Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed in August extends the illness excuse to include the risk of contracting or spreading the coronavirus.
The county anticipates a substantial increase in mail-in voting this year, Czarny said.
“In the primary, we saw 60% of our voting calculation voted by mail,” he said. “So that will mean instead of giving 10 to 15,000 absentees, we are giving 125,000 absentees.”
This year’s elections will be like no other as the fight against COVID-19 continues on. We talked with Dustin Czarny, Democratic Elections Commissioner for Onondaga County, about National Poll Worker Recruitment Day and the preparations that are being taken to protect these workers.
Information in our meeting with N Syracuse Post Office and everything you need to know about Governors Executive orders on Absentees and informational mailing. Goto onvote.net to apply for absentee, become a poll watcher, learn about early voting or election day information.
More workers are typically needed at polling sites in presidential election years like this one, when voter turnout typically peaks, said Dustin Czarny, an elections commissioner in Onondaga County.
This year, counties also need more workers to help wipe down equipment and sanitize surfaces during the pandemic.
Onondaga County wants to hire 1,200 poll workers for the election, and officials are still about 200 employees short of the hiring goal, Czarny said.
In this week’s Zoom with Czarny I sit down with the Democratic State Board of Elections Commissioners Douglas Kellner & Andrew Spano. We talk about the intricacies of our Bi-Partisan Elections Board as well as all the changes happening Go to onvote.net to get your absentee ballot, check your registration, and find out Early Voting information
As a service to provide information to the voters of Onondaga County I present my third installment of Wonky Wednesday. Each Wednesday I am going to do a post on my Tumble blog focusing on registration data in Onondaga County. The last 4 years have proven to reshape Onondaga County and New York State. These changes have made Democrats more competitive in traditionally Republican areas. This series is meant to show how these demographics will shape the upcoming November election.
This week we dive into the 53rd NYS Senate district. The 53rd Senate district has a dramatic Democratic registration advantage. This district in 2012 was drawn to protect incumbent Senator and IDC member Dave Valesky. It was the most democratically drawn district in upstate NY. One of those reasons for that was the IDC alliance with the Senate Republicans allowed them to draw this seat and feel it was “safe”. That changed in 2018.
Rachel May (D) is the incumbent Senator for NY 53. She was able to ride a Democratic wave into office in 2018 despite never running for office before. The “No IDC” movement helped her beat the incumbent Dave Valesky in a tightly fought primary. Her 3.6% win on Primary night came as a surprise to much of the area. She went on to defeat Janet Burman by 14.32% however Dave Valesky stayed in the race without campaigning. Senator May was able to chair the Aging committee which has come under the spotlight investigating NY response to COVID-19, became a leading voice for electoral reform from her spot on the Elections Committee and authored nationally recognized legislation on protecting our water from out of state fracking waste.
Her main opponent in 2020 is Sam Rodgers (R). Mr Rodgers is a former Syracuse University football player and an attorney. This is his first run for office and will appear on the Republican, SAM, and independence line. Complicating his run is the appearance of Russel Penner on the Libertarian line which could draw votes from the right side of the electorate.
#NY53 was drawn to be a Democratic district in 2012. Democrats have increased their advantage in this district as well with a large plurality of the district (41%) In fact the GOP (27%) only has slightly more enrolled than non-enrolled voters (24%). The only hope for an opponent against Rachel May is to merge non-enrolled and GOP voters into a solid block but the geography of the district makes that harder to do.
The City of Syracuse dominates this Senate district which leads to its strong partisan lean. The suburban towns of Onondaga County, Madison County, and part of Oneida all have a slight GOP lean. However the non-enrolled voters of Syracuse tend to vote Democrat in dramatic ways. Which makes any strategy of countering the Democratic advantage by strict partisan voting to be flawed. A successful opponent would need suburban and rural Democrats to join in, making this seat extremely hard to flip, especially in what is seen as a Democratic wave year.
Senator May’s victory over Burman was a bit muted in 2018 as Dave Valesky remained on the Independence and recording over 11k votes. 2020 will be a test of whether Senator May has consolidated the Democratic electorate in the district. Aiding her will is the over 400 more Democratic voters in the district and the expected surge in turnout a Presidential election will bring to the district.
This week’s Zoom with Czarny we talk to Julie Cerio for Family Court Judge and DeJoseph for Family Court Democrats running for Onondaga County Family Court Judge. We talk about their roots and Syracuse and Onondaga County and their desire to help families.
It was postmarked eight days after we dropped it in a mailbox in the town of Van Buren. We talked with Onondaga County Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny after the last piece of mail arrived with a late postmark. That raised alarms for the Commissioner. “If it was postmarked after Election Day,” said Czarny. “We would have to invalidate this ballot.”
Dustin M. Czarny 