Elections Professional and Activist
This week I talk about designating petitions. the cutoff was 5pm Thursday to file for office. Nearly 150 petitions and 500 candidates have chosen to participate in this year’s election. More to come this summer. Enjoy.
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City mayoral campaigns will be among hundreds that will file petitions at the county elections board, with this year’s election featuring races for city, county, town and village offices.
“Outside of election week, it’s the biggest week of the year,” Czarny said.
https://www.syracuse.com/news/2025/03/this-is-a-big-week-in-the-syracuse-mayors-race-heres-why.html
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Welcome back to the #weeklywonk. Each week I take a deep dive in some form of electoral and registration data. By examining this data, I hope to give a more comprehensive view of our home, Onondaga County. I am excited to bring you a fresh look at Onondaga County this week. For the first time I do a deep dive into Age and gender in Onondaga County.
There are 316,569 voters in Onondaga County as of March 27, 2025. Of those 53% (166,976) identify as Female and 46% (146,979) identify as Male. Another 2,614 (1%) either refused to identify a sex, were unisex, or another option. We also breakdown Onondaga County into the standard age categories used to study population. The most populous age group is 35-45 with 52,432 voters. This is closely followed by 55-65 (52,417) & 25-35 (51,821), Dropping down a bit is 65-75 (49,754) then 75+ (39,741). In last place is the youngest demographic 18025 (27,241).
There is a stark divide in the partisan registrations among the gender. Democrats dominate the Female population with 71437 voters. The none-enrolled is second in the Female electorate with 46,950 voters. Gop comes in 3rd in the female electorate with 39,328 voters. The male population is a bit more even. First in the male population is non-enrolled at 46.199. This is followed in close second by Democrats at 45,935 voters. Third is the Gop at 44,926. The Other category is much smaller with 1,358 NE voters, 876 democrats, and 291 GOP.
When we look at partisan makeup by age group Democrats lead in just about every age group. As we progress through the age groups lead tends to shrink. The non-enrolled is in 1st place in the 18-25 age group by quite a bit, outpacing the Democrats and double up the GOP. As we progress through the age groups the NE influence lessens, and the GOP grows. Though the GOP does not lead in any age group it is 2nd place in the 55-65, 65-75, and 75+. The GOP comes closest to the Democrats in the 55-65 and 75+ group.
Looking at the Democratic electorate it is decidedly more female and younger than the overall Onondaga County electorate. There are 118,248 Democratic voters in Onondaga County. 60% (71,437) are female, 39% (45,932) are male., 1% (879) are other. When looking at the age groups that Democrats are most popular, the 35-45 is the most populous with 20,725 voters. This is followed by the 25-35 age group (20,448). The third largest is the 65-75 age group (19,022 voters). Most of this population resides between 25-55.
The GOP electorate is the opposite of the Democrats, more male than the county and older. There are 84,545 voters. 53% (44,926 voters) are male, 47% (39,328 voters) are female, and <1% (291) are other. The three oldest age groups are where the GOP mostly reside. 55-65 is the biggest group with 17,297. This is followed by 65-75 with 15,445. Finally, is 75+ at 14,278. Most of this population is 55+.
Lastly let’s examine the non-enrolled population. This is a balanced population and only slightly more make than Onondaga County as a whole, but significantly younger. There are 94,507 non-enrolled voters in Onondaga County. The highest plurality resides in the 25-35 with 18,421 voters. The second biggest group is 35-45 with 17,034 voters. The third biggest group is 55-65 with 13,142 voters. Most of this population is under 45 years old.
That is, it for this edition of the #weeklywonk. Next week I will return to the City of Syracuse to look at each of the 5 common council districts to get ready for the expected June primaries. I start on the northside with common council district 1. As always you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content for election news and content update.
“A birth certificate replication was over $100 last time I did it. $80 for a passport. These are real costs for people when deciding whether they can afford it or not. It’s the essence of a poll tax, something we’ve gotten away from,” he explained.
https://www.localsyr.com/news/local-news/presidents-trump-executive-order-sparks-controversy-on-voting-in-onondaga-county/
A few thoughts this morning on the President’s executive order on elections. Some caveats, I am not a lawyer, but I have read up extensively on this to prepare. I also am collecting some thoughts for a Commissioner in a Car on Monday.
Let’s start with what this order isn’t. It isn’t the SAVE act. It is not changing the federal election laws or sweeping overhauls of state election laws. What it seems to do is withhold federal funds to get compliance.
This is wrong, but also not likely to have any impact. The biggest criticism of federal spending on elections is that it has been virtually non-existent since 2020. Withholding funds is unlikely to force states to change.
The withdrawal of funds will affect states like New York who count votes received after election day and every state but Arizona that does not have documentary proof such as birth certificates, required at registration.
It does not however force states to change their laws, only withhold funds from states who do not comply. This is the difference between this and the SAVE act.
The other main directive is the direct intervention on the US Elections Assistance Commission (of which I serve on a subcommittee). This is thought to be an independent agency and not under the executive control.
This will likely be the first thing challenged in court. This bi partisan commission was set up to be an independent agency to prevent this type of meddling from a partisan president or congressional body.
If the order stands it will change the way voting machines are certified. The main question is how will voting machines be certified under the new standards within 180 days.
No system is certified under the new VOLUNTARY standard now that was just recently adopted. Certifying every system throughout the country in 180 days seems unworkable.
Also, the changing of the voter registration form will in essence make it unworkable. The documentary proof of requiring things like a birth certificate will be cost prohibitive and create major issues with election office record retention.
I expect these points and many more to be fought through litigation over the coming weeks.
A great deal of things happened this last week that I want to talk about. Wrapping up of the march village elections. I also talk about the court of appeals decisions on NYC Non citizen voting and remanding of the even year legislation back down to the appellant division. Check it out.
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Welcome back to the #weeklywonk! Each week I take a deep dive in some form of electoral and registration data. By examining this data, I hope to give a more comprehensive view of our home, Onondaga County. I am currently looking at the political subdivisions having elections this November. This week we will focus on the City of Syracuse which among other races is having an open election for the next Mayor.
The City of Syracuse is the bright blue center of Onondaga County. Democrats have a majority of the active voter registration with 40,935 voters (53%). The non-enrolled is second with 22,557 voters (29%). The GOP is a distant third with 9,860 voters (13%). Rounding out the active voter population are the Conservatives (709 1%), Working family Party (707 1%), and voters enrolled in various other parties (2,371 3%). In 2023 the City of Syracuse reshaped their five Common Council districts using the newly created citizen redistricting commission. These new common council districts better reflected the neighborhoods and population inside the city. However since redistricting was based on population not registered voters it creates some large differences in voter population. The first common council district in the north side of Syracuse has a large population of non-citizens and thus has the least voter population (12,637 16%). This is followed by the 3rd Common Council (14,115 18%) which is home to Syracuse University who has large populations unregistered or registered in other communities. Rounding out the city is 2nd Common Council District (16,429 21%, 4th Common Council (16,633 22%), and the 5th Common Council District (17,325 23%).
The City of Syracuse has long been a Democratic stronghold. However now at the completion of a gull Presidential Cycle we can compare long term trends to a recent short term. Democrats have gained 1,863 since 2009, however between November 2020 and November 2024 they gained 326 voters. The republicans have lost 3,122 voters since 2009, but in contrast they gained 696 voters between November 2020 & November 2024. The big gainer though is the non-enrolled. Not only did they gain 5,973 voters since 2009, but most of that gain also happened between November 2020 & November 2024 with 4,830 voters added. So while it raises an eyebrow that the GOP gained at double the rate that the Democrats did in the last four years, that pales in comparison to the Non-enrolled gain at 7 times the rate of GOP and 14 times the rate of Democrats.
The partisan makeup of the City of Syracuse Common Council districts is all similar in their Democratic dominance, but in varying degrees. In every district the Democrats are well over the other categories, with non-enrolled in second, and the GOP in distant third. The least Democratic dominant district is district one with a +28.04% representing the northside. That is followed by the second common council district at +36.08% which represents the west side of Syracuse. Next is the fifth common council representing Eastwood and Sedgewick at +34.86%. #rd common council district representing the university and east side of Syracuse has a +50.58%. Finally, the most Democratic district is the fourth common council representing downtown and the south side into the valley. At +50.65%.
Syracuse is so dominated by Democrats I had to add a few categories for the heat map. For this map we look at the wards of the City of Syracuse and color them based on the degree of Democratic enrollment edges. Wards 1,2,3,7,4, & 5 are the least Democratic wards in the City of Syracuse falling in the Dem +20-29% range. Wards 6, 8, & 11 are in the Dem +30-39 range. Wards 9, 10,13, 14, 15, & 16 fall in the Dem +40-49 range. The most democratic wards are 12, 17, 18 & 19 in the +50-59% range.
It is helpful to not just look at straight Democratic enrollment edges but to factor in the third parties as well. The Conservative party tends to align with the GOP and the WFP tends to align with the Democrats. Usually, the conservatives outnumber the WFP by a factor of five or more and thus it can swing districts to the right. However, in the City of Syracuse the WFP and Conservatives are essentially tied. That means the wards really do not change much when we look at the ideological leans of the wards when compared to the heat map that just shows the Dem % gain over GOP.
New to this year’s #weeklywonk I am incorporating age into our analysis. The average age of an active registered voter of Onondaga County is 50.17 years old. Only one ward in the City of Syracuse is older than the county as a whole, and that is Ward 14. The youngest ward is of course the 16th Ward whose average age is 28.31. This is the home of Syracuse University and that significantly brings it down. It is worth noting that younger wards like 2 (43.72), 9 (42.18) 15 (43.72) also are known to have student population in them or large apartment complexes that attract younger populations. That is why more residential wards like Ward 4 (Sedgewick 47.87), Ward 5 (Eastwood 48.91), Ward 11 (Strathmore 48.87), Ward 13 & 14 (Valley 48.11,50.30) and Ward 17 (Bradford hills, Meadowbrook, Salt Springs, Westcott 48.55) are on average older than the other wards.
Finally, we look at the comparative races to get a sense of how the City of Syracuse when compared to the rest of the County. As you can imagine the City of Syracuse performs quite to the left of the county. In 2024 the Family Court judge race the Democrat got 73.41% of the vote, 18.50% more than the county average. The 2023 County Clerk race the Democrat got 72.50% of the vote, 22.36% more than the county average. The 2022 Governor race the Democrat got 73.51% of the vote, 19.73% more than the county average. The 2021 Supreme Court race the Democrat got 73.78% of the vote, 21.28% more than the county average. This means a Democrat can generally expect to receive 18-22% more votes than their county average in the city. This makes the performance of Ben Walsh in both of his elections all the more interesting. In his 2021 race he won 60.52% of the voter while the Democrat had 27.68% and the GOP had 11.80%. It is unlikely we will see an independent candidate this popular again this year, but the possibility remains since it has happened recently.
That is it for this edition of the #weeklywonk. Next week I will do a deep dive on two facets of our county I have not done yet. I will take a deep dive into age and gender in our County and city. Tune in next week to take a look at how this breaks down. As always you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.
The Onondaga County Board of Elections has released their polling places for the 2025 General election. I talk about why we had to release it this early and what process feeds from this release. I also talk about the very few changes from last year and go into the decision making. Finally I address how these changes work with pre-clearance in the John R Lewis NY Voting Rights Act that Onondaga County falls under. Enjoy.
Subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates
Welcome back to the #weeklywonk! Each week I take a deep dive in some form of electoral and registration data. By examining this data, I hope to give a more comprehensive view of our home, Onondaga County. This week I start looking at the political subdivisions having elections this November. This week we will focus on the suburban and rural towns of Onondaga County.
As of March 12, 2025, the Towns of Onondaga County have 241,729 active registered voters. 77,787 (31%) are enrolled in the Democratic party and represent a plurality of the suburbs. The GOP follows with 74,909 (31%), the non-enrolled are third with 72,338 (30%). The remainder are Conservatives at 4,504 (2%) Working Family 891 (1%) and 10,168 voters (4% scattered among other parties. There are basically three main regions of our county. The large Suburban towns have 63% of the registered voters (199,404). The City of Syracuse has 24% of the registered voters (77,373). Just 13% of the registered voters reside in the small agrarian rural towns (41,193).
The Towns of Onondaga County have undergone the same type of change we have seen in other political subdivisions. The Democrats have gained 12,812 voters since 2009. The GOP has lost 2,900 voters over the same period. The non-enrolled had the most dramatic increase rising 19,266 voters. From 2009 to 2015 we saw stagnation by the Democrats and the GOP losing ground. The GOP stabilized from 2016 to today. The Democrats saw a big boom in the first trump era from 2016-202 but have stagnated since. The non-enrolled have risen nearly every year with dramatic increases since 2020.
For drawing comparisons, the county of Onondaga is basically three different regions. The City of Syracuse represents the center of Onondaga County and the most urban population. Its voter population reflects that with Democrats holding a +40.31% edge over the GOP which also sits in a distant 3rd to the non-enrolled. The Large Suburban towns of Camillus, Cicero, Clay, Dewitt, Geddes, Lysander, Manlius, Onondaga & Salina. These large towns (over 10k voters0 have denser areas than the rural towns but not as dense as the urban core of Syracuse. Their makeup reflects more of the average of Onondaga County with Democrats having a small +3.54% registration edge over the GOP who are just behind the non-enrolled in 3rd place. Finally, we have the rural towns of Elbridge, Fabius, Lafayette, Marcellus, Otisco, Pompey, Skaneateles, Spafford, Tully, and van Buren. These areas may have small village and hamlets with some density but are mostly comprised of agrarian tracts of land. These represent the most conservative regions of our county with the GOP holding a +10.16% enrollment edge and the Democrats are in 3rd place just behind the non-enrolled.
This is the heat map for Onondaga County by individual Town. The City of Syracuse an overwhelming Democratic region right in the middle in dark blue. The Town of Dewitt a solid Democratic town in blue right to the east of Syracuse. On either side of Dewitt, we have the light blue lean Democratic towns of Salina and Fabius. Camillus, Clay, Geddes, and Onondaga in the dark purple are borderline Democratic towns. Cicero In the light purple is a borderline GOP town. Lysander, Van Buren, Skaneateles, Marcellus, Tully, and Pompey are lean GOP towns in the pink. Lafayette and Spafford are solid GOP towns. Elbridge in the dark red is a strong GOP town. Otisco and Fabius in the dark burgundy are overwhelming GOP towns.
Just about every Town in Onondaga County has swung to the left since 2009. Dewitt & Salina were the only town in 2009 where Democrats had a slight enrollment edge, and it grew significantly since. The towns of Clay and Manlius were solid GOP towns in 2009 and now are solid Democratic enrollment edges. Camillus, Geddes, Onondaga flipped from slight GOP leaning to slight Democratic enrollment edge. Towns such as Lafayette, Lysander, Marcellus, Pompey, Skaneateles, Spafford, Tully, and Van Buren have seen their GOP registration rates shrink since 2009, though thy still stay in the GOP ledger. The only towns that have seen increase in registration rates for the GOP are Cicero, Elbridge, Fabius, & Otisco.
New to this year’s “#weeklywonk I am looking at the average age of the voters in Onondaga county. Last week we established the average age of an Onondaga County voter is 50.17 years. The towns the average age is slightly older at 51.42 years old. The City of Syracuse is much lighter with 46.34 years old. Rural agrarian towns tend to be the oldest at 52.24 years old with large suburban towns at just 51.25 years old. As we saw with the county in general, more rural areas tend to be more conservative and thus older. Urban areas tend to be more liberal and thus younger. Suburban areas, right in the middle on both age and ideology.
Finally, we can look at the comparative races for the Towns of Onondaga County as a whole. These four races represent some of the closest races that ran countywide in the last four cycles. Looking at them gives us a decent look at how a political subdivision may react to similar races in the future. The newest edition to this chart is the 2024 Family Court race. This is the only one of the four races where a Democrat won the towns, winning 50.49% but running 4.42% behind the county average (54.91%), The 2023 County Clerk race the Democrat only garnered 47.48% but just 2.66% behind the county average (50.14%). The 2022 governor race the Democrat won 49.74% and running 4.04% behind the county average (53.78%). The 2021 Supreme Court race the Democrat performed the worst with just 46.84% running 5.66% behind the county average (52.50%). In general, the Towns seem to perform 2-5% behind the county.
That is, it for this edition of the #weeklywonk. Next week we will look at the urban center of our county, the City of Syracuse. Check the different areas as we prepare for the upcoming June primary for Mayor and other offices. As always you can subscribe to dustincarny.com for all content and election news updates.
This week I preview the March Village elections in Skaneateles and Manlius that the Onondaga County Board of Elections runs as well as the Jordan and Fabius elections run by their village clerks. I go over why some villages have their elections in March, some in June, and now most in Onondaga County have them in November. Enjoy.
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Dustin M. Czarny