“Czarny said thousands of new voters registered after Democrats dropped President Joe Biden and nominated Vice President Kamala Harris to challenge Trump.”
Elections Commissioners on the need for poll workers ahead of early voting – WSYR 9
Commissioner Sardo and I appeared on WSYR to talk about the need for poll workers ahead of this year’s election.
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New board of elections ‘pre-clearance’ rules start this weekend – Spectrum News
However, Dustin Czarny, the Democratic Elections commissioner of Onondaga County, which is one of the covered entities, believes Burns is exaggerating the impact of the new rules.
“The determination to move a polling place, whether its annually or at the last minute, is still going to be made by the bipartisan board of elections,” Czarny said. “Both Democrats and Republicans have to agree on it.”
Czarny said last-minute polling changes are typically only made in cases of emergencies and career professionals in the AG’s office are essentially reviewing and ratifying those decisions.
“They’re not coming in and telling us what to do,” he said. “They’re not coming in and getting involved in the polling places.”
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OCDC Reorganizational meeting 9/18/2024
I was nominated for my another term as Onondaga County Elections Commissioner (D) on 9/18/24. Above is my remarks accepting the nomination. Below is my letter to OCDC committee members asking for their support for another two years.
Dear Onondaga County Democrats,
In 2012 the Onondaga County Democratic Committee gave me one of the honors of my life when you nominated me for Onondaga County Democratic Commissioner. It has been both one of the hardest and most fulfilling jobs of my life. The honor to serve voters, candidates, lawmakers, and advocates has been a dream come true. Thus, I ask you for your support for another term to continue this important work and serve as your Democratic Elections Commissioner of Onondaga County.
When I took this position, I promised I would use it to increase voter access and better the experiences of voters. Along with the hard-working staff of the Onondaga County Board of Elections, the last 12 years have seen a revolution in voting in New York. We instituted and expanded Early Voting. We protected mail in voting from partisan challenges while expanding it as an option to all voters. We improved technology at our polling sites which has reduced wait times and counted the votes more accurately. We have expanded our website (onvote.net) to allow for online voter registration, absentee ballot requests, & check your polling place. We have also worked hard to add statistical information going beck 15 to 30 years (depending on data availability) and election results going back to 1945.
In 2017 I was named the Democratic Caucus Chair of the NYS Elections Commissioner Association and remain in that role to this day. As Caucus Leader I have had the opportunity to testify in Albany and meet with legislative leaders. I am proud that New York has earmarked millions of dollars for local county boards of the election each year since 2019. I have also worked with legislative leaders on legislation to better our electoral system.
In 2023 I was able to expand my horizons and joined three distinct national groups. I joined the Faces of Democracy with Issue One, a bi partisan group of election officials dedicated to protecting the sanctity of the vote. I was one of the founding members of the Local Leadership council for the Elections Assistance Commission. This permanent federal government agency has bi partisan representation from each state to assist in federal election legislation and resources and I am one of the two New York representatives. I also have joined the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions representing Onondaga County in a group dedicated to the needs of large election offices.
In my next term I hope to continue to advocate for proper resources for our Board of Elections. The Onondaga County Board of Elections has one full time employee for every 14k voters. That is nearly double the average throughout the rest of New York State. I am also an advocate to move our Eelection Day polling sites to become vote centers like our Early Voting sites. This would allow voters to visit any site on Election Day like they can on Early Voting. Both goals have legislation that has been passed by the NY Senate but not the Assembly and I will continue lobbying for their eventual passage and signing into law by the Governor.
Thank you again for all you do to help voters and elect Democrats throughout Onondaga County,
Sincerely,
Dustin Czarny
Commissioner (D)
Onondaga County Board of Elections
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Commissioner in a Car: All About Prop 1 and National Voter Registration Day
Today I talk about the ERA amendment, prop 1, that will appear on the back of every voters ballots this fall. I talk about how proposition’s go on the ballot, the fight over the language of this amendment, and what the amendment means. I also briefly touch on the national voter registration day and how you can still register to vote. Enjoy.
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The Weekly Wonk: 2023 Annual Report
Welcome back to the #weeklywonk. This is my weekly article on election statistics and related topics. These articles give insight into the data and statistics that make up our home, Onondaga County and New York State. Each week I investigate a different election event or political subdivision that can give us clues into our rich and diverse electoral tapestry. This week I take a look at some of the data in our 2023 Annual Report that was released at the end of August 2024.
The Onondaga County board of Elections is mandated by law to make a written annual report t detailing the previous year’s activities. This report is delivered to the County Executive, Clerk, Comptroller, and every member of the Onondaga County Legislature. The report details all of the aspects of the Onondaga County Board of Elections. Much of the data in the report is like electoral information on registration. Turnout, and voter behavior is already detailed in my post-election #weeklywonk. Today I will focus on what we have not covered, namely the workload and financial aspects of the Onondaga County Board of Elections. If you want to read the full Annual Report it is listed on our website at: https://onondaga.gov/elections/annual-reports-and-meeting-minutes/
The first data point is the number of registration forms processed by the OCBOE. Registration forms are a bule of the work the OCBOE does year-round. In 2023 the OCBOE processed 43,158 forms. Since 2018 we have seen a large surge in registration forms that we process annually as seen by the above chart. This is mainly due to the reforms made in 2019 to make registering to vote easier in New York. The forms in 2023 were down from the 76k forms processed in 2019, the last similar year, but still ahead of our form totals before 2019. The lion’s share of these forms comes from the DMV (36,066). The second form total came from the mail at 3512. A794 forms came over the counter, including online voter registration, 1,366 forms came from New York agencies and 426 registrations came from Affidavit voters who must fill out a registration form on their envelope when they vote.
In 2023 the Onondaga County Board of Elections spent $3,134,217 in actual appropriations and $643,936 in grant spending. Of the actual appropriations $1,153,585.00 was spent in salary and overtime for the two commissioners and eighteen full time Board employees. $715,265 was spent on election inspectors and mobile technicians. $657,930 was spent on supplies and election expenses. 57,297.00 was spent on Employee benefits. $458,130.0 was spent in interdepartmental charges such as IT, Law, And printing services. The Grant spending by the OCBOE was mostly from the TIER grant ($592,278.00) which assisted in the capital project of replacing all voting machines and upgrading to have ballot on demand printers in every polling place. $30,162 was reimbursed on our NYS Absentee Ballot grant to reimburse for postage, printing, and supplies needed for NYS ever increasing Vote by Mail budget. $19,320 was spent on our CYBE security grant, mostly for planning a generator in our building. Finally we spent $2,175 to close out our nearly15 year old HAVA Shoebox grant that was used for training of election inspectors.
The budget for the Onondaga County Board of Elections is determined by the Onondaga County Legislature with input from the commissioners of Onondaga County. In 2023 the Commissioners proposed a budget of $3.95 million annually. The Onondaga County legislature only approved a budget of $3.13 million. The actual spending for 202 ended up being $3.83 million. In 2023 the OCBOE exceeded our adopted budget, but not the proposed spending by the commissioners at the start of the budget process.
To see why the OCBOE was over budget and where we differed from the legislature it is important to break up the budget into Direct Appropriations and Interdepartmental appropriations. Direct appropriations are the actual spending by the OCBOE and where commissioners have the most control over their spending. The difference between the draft plan of 2.94 million and the adopted budget of 2.45 million were proposed by an additional six employees. Those were not approved by the legislature. The OCBOE, despite facing a county wide hand count, actually came in under the adopted budget only spending 2.36 million. The OCBOE has only gone over the adopted budget three times since 2013. In 2016, 2018 and 2022. 2016 and 2018 were unprecedented years and we still came under the draft budget of the commissioners which estimated the actual election expenses correctly. In 2022 a second primary was ordered midyear causing the OCBO to go over both the draft and adopted budgets.
Interdepartmental appropriations are the reason the OCBOE went over budget in 2023. Interdepartmental spending is out of the control of the Onondaga County Board of Elections. This spending is employee related benefit spending and chargebacks from other county departments such as IT and Law. The office of Management and budget prepares the draft budget on this, and the Onondaga County Legislature adjusts it when they approved. The spending itself is only reported in the final books the Onondaga County Comptroller puts together. The entire average of the OCBOE budget this year is from interdepartmental spending that came in at $1.47 million after only being budgeted for $1.05 million.
The final part of our budget is revenue. The OCBOE is not a revenue generating entity, but we do take in some revenue annually. The revenue mainly comes from villages and school districts that reimburse OCBOE for the time of our employees and costs of helping print ballots for their elections. The OCBOE actually exceeded expectations this year, having the best revenue year since 2018. We brought in 18.3k in revenue after being budgeted for 11k. This is mainly due to a cost analysis we have done over the last few years to adjust prices for Villages and School Districts to reflect actual cost to the county for assisting in their elections. Revenue from voters and campaigns in getting lists and mailing labels has all but vanished as the OCBOE delivers data almost exclusively electronically now so there is no need for reimbursement.
One of the ways the OCBOE has found a way to make up for the lack of resources is to be efficient in our use of election inspectors. The OCBOE fields one inspector for every 297.56 voters in 2023. This is the fifth most efficient inspector ratio in the state. NYC averages one inspector for every 165.18 voters. Non-NYC counties had one inspector for every 204.78 voters. Large counties over 100k, the most similar category to Onondaga County, has one inspector for every 206.96 voters. The State as a whole has one inspector for every 187.45 voters. We have done this while still giving great service to voters by investing in technology like on-demand printers and electronic poll books.
Finally, a part of our Annual Report each year looks ahead to the budget of the next election and compares it to other county Board of Elections throughout the state. There are sixty-two counties in NY State, but the 5 NYC counties function as one, making fifty-seven different entities. We adjust for voter population so we can make true comparisons. The biggest source of conflict between the OCBOE and Onondaga County is our full-time employee roster. With twenty full time employees the OCBOE averages one full time employee for every 14k voters. This is the worst ratio in the state, which averages almost one full time employee for every 7k voters. This is nearly the same ratio for non-NYC counties one for 7.2k and large counties with over 100k voters (1:7.2k).
The OCBOE remains one of the more austere budgets in New York State. The 2024 budget intends for OCBOE to spend $11.67 per voter in 2024. This is the fifth most austere budget in NYS. For comparison NYC will spend $54.73 per voter but outside of NY the rest of the state will spend $21.99 per voter, nearly double the OCBOE budget for 2024. Large counties over 100k will spend $23.28 per voter and the state as a whole will spend $34.63 per voter.
That is, it for this #weeklywonk. Next week we return to the political subdivisions as we look at the Town of Fabius. The Town of Fabus is having a contested contest for Town Judge this year. A Democrat has stepped up to the plate to run in what is seen as one of the more republican towns in Onondaga County. Check it out next week. As always you can subscribe to dustincarny.com for all content and election news updates.
Syracuse, NY22 a major target for Democrats looking to flip the House blue
“We’re expecting many more thousands of voter registration forms,” Czarny said, “anyone who has to win a race in Onondaga County, has now got to make sure that they’re talking to not just their party base.”
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Zoom with Czarny: Christina El Bayadi for Family Court
This week I talk to Christina El-Bayadi. She is running for the newly created 5th Family Court seat in Onondaga County. Democrats have had alot of success county wide and specially in the judiciary the last few years. She hopes to become our next Family Court judge. Enjoy.
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Commissioner in a Car: All About Board of Elections in NY
I am running for re-election at the Onondaga County Democratic Committee for my post as Commissioner of the Onondaga County Board of Elections. Thus I thought I would spend some time talking about how the bi-partisan boards of elections in NY and how we administer every election in NY. Enjoy.
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The Weekly Wonk: The Town of Clay 2024
Welcome back to the #weeklywonk. This is my weekly article on election statistics and related topics. These articles give insight into the data and statistics that make up our home, Onondaga County and New York State. Each week I investigate a different election event or political subdivision that can give us clues into our rich and diverse electoral tapestry. Now that the June primary has been certified we turn our attention to the General Election. There are several towns holding to fill vacancy elections that are contested. This week I look at the largest town in Onondaga County, the Town of Clay.
The Town of Clay has 42,079 active registered as of September 2024. Democrats make up 14,151 (34%), Republicans 12,293 (29%) non-enrolled 12,800 (30%), Conservatives 791 (2%) Working Families 484 (1%) and 1,560 (4%) are in various other not recognized parties. The Town of Clay is broken up into three different Onondaga County legislative districts. The smallest is the fifth legislative district portion that makes up 10% of the active voters (4,105). The second legislative district portion has 42% (17,877) of the voters. The 14th legislative district is the largest and the only district that wholly resides in the town of Clay. It has 48% (20,097) of the voters.
When we look at the partisan trends in Town of Clay, we see the beginning of what might become a Democratic town. The Democrats have gained considerably since 2009 adding 2,046 voters. In the same time period, the non-enrolled have added an outstanding 3,309 voters. The GOP has lost 136 voters since 2009. One of the things I am tracking this year is how subdivisions have changed since the last Presidential election. Democrats have lost sixty-six voters in the Town of Clay and Republicans have lost 413. The non-enrolled continued to gain, adding 1128 voters. So far in 2024 the bulk of new registrations have just started to come in and this data does not reflect registration data in parts of August. There is evidence so far that Democrats have started to see an increase this year and republicans have continued to fall while non-enrolled continue to grow at the fastest rate. We will see if that trend holds at the end of the year.
Taking a look at the partisan makeup of the legislative portions we see a slight blue leaning in two out of the three. The 2nd Legislative district portion on the west side of Clay has a +8.00% Democratic lean and the non-enrolled actually outnumber the GOP. We see a similar ratio in the fifth legislative district portion in the southeast corner of the town with the Democrats having a +6.80% lean and the GOP once again coming in third place. The 14th legislative district is about as even as possible, with Democrats having the smallest of advantage at +0.74% and less than 225 voters separating the Democrats, GOP and Non-enrolled.
With that we check in on the heat map for Town of Clay. For the heat map we look at the forty-six election districts inside the Town of Clay. It may surprise readers that there are only four election districts with a definitive GOP lean in the Town of Clay. Those eds on the heat map are in the pink or red. Another seventeen are considered borderline with purple on the GOP side and lavender on the Democratic side with less than a 5% lean towards either party. Twenty-five of the eds have Democratic lean and are in various shades of blue on the map. That means that 4,175 voters live in GOP election Districts (9.92%). 1. 51 voters live in borderline election districts (38.14%). Finally, the majority of the town, 21,853 voters (51.93%) live in election districts with a Democratic lean.
In the towns, however, you cannot just look at the two major parties. The Conservative party plays a large factor in swinging the population to the right. When looking at the three legislative district portions we see that the 2nd Legislative district swings 1.38% to the right when Conservative and Working Families are accounted for. The fifth legislative district swings the largest, 1.97% to the right, and drops that portion down to a borderline Democratic district. The 14th legislative district swings 1.39% to the right and actually flips to becoming a borderline GOP district.
Finally, we look at the comparative races and how they perform in the Town of Clay vs. the county overall. In general, the Town of Clay performs 5-7% more republican than Onondaga County as a whole. In 2022 Governor Kathy Hochul won the County with 53.78% but only garnered 48.86% of the vote in Clay (-4.92%). In the 2021 Supreme Court race Anthony Brindisi got 43.74% of the town of Clay vote -8.76% than his Onondaga County total (52.50%). President Biden’s 2024 race performed the best of our comparative race inside the Town of Clay, actually winning it with 54.71% of the vote but that was -4.17% worse than his Onondaga County total (58.88%). County Clerk Emily Essi’s win in 2023 was a surprise however she did the worst in the Town of Clay with just 43.37% of the vote and -6.77% of her county total (50.14%) However that was a 0.57% better result than 2019. Finally, I added the 2023 Town Supervisor race in the comparative results. Democrats did not do particularly well in that race, with just 41.15%. However, that is a significant improvement (+6.23%) from the 2021 race for Town Clerk that was also held town wide.
The only races inside the Town of Clay are for the Town Board. This is a vacancy seat as the former Town Board member, Kevin meeker, left the board to take the 2nd County Legislative seat. David Capria, who ran for Town Supervisor, is running for the Town Board seat. He is hoping his name recognition from the previous race and the general enthusiasm and higher turnout in a Presidential election will propel him to victory in the fall.
That is, it for this edition of the #weeklywonk. Nest week I take a break from the political subdivisions and take a look back at 2023. Our annual report from 2023 has been released and I will look at the data slides in it to see how the Onondaga County Board of Elections stacks up to the rest of the state in terms of resources and performance. As always you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.
Dustin M. Czarny 