Welcome back to the #weeklywonk.  This is my weekly article on election statistics and related topics. These articles give insight in 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 finish my 2-week investigation into the recent 2024 June Federal and local primary. Today I focus on Election Day and Overall turnout.

Election Day voting remains the most popular form of voting in New York.  We had 22,381 voters in the June 2024 Primary and 16,097 (72%) chose to vote on Election Day. Other forms of voting were Mail Balloting with 2300 voters (10%), Early Voting with 3,878 voters (17%), affidavit voting with 72 voters (1%), and court orders with 5 voters (0%).  On Election Day 13,621 voters were Democrat (85%), 2,472 were Republican (15%) and just 4 Conservative voters (0%).

While Election Day voting continues to be the most popular, its vote share is waning.  The 16097 Election Day voters was just 71.92% of the overall vote share.  This was one of the smaller vote shares since the major election reforms in 2019.  Primaries did not start getting Early Voting until 2020.  The 20202 June primary was at the height of the pandemic and saw the lowest amount of in person voting on Election Day.  However, as the pandemic subsided, and vaccines were introduced we saw a resurgence in Election Day voting in primary.  However, we have seen a steady decline in primaries (and general election) of vote share on Election Day.  The voters are trending towards using Early Voting and Vote by mail more as we saw with the last #weeklywonk. 

Each #weeklywonk on Election Day I like to point out the top ten polling places that had voters on Election Day, what is notable about this listing is 5 of the top 10 polling places were inside the city of Syracuse.  This is abnormal as polling sites inside the city are smaller, but a higher concentration of Democrats. Pumped up those numbers.  Three of those polling Places (Nottingham High School 311, Erwin First United 299, and Spiritual Renewal Center 287) were in the east side of Syracuse otherwise known as the Mighty 17^th ward, the largest concentration of Democrats throughout the county and upstate NY.  The other two city sites were Bellevue Heights (269) is on the west side and Valley Vista (204) on the south side.  The suburban sites are our usual suspects St. Michael & St. Peter (Onondaga, 300), Skaneateles Fire Department (249), St Joseph’s Parish (Camillus, 233), Immaculate Conception Church (Manlius 228), Skaneateles Presbyterian, & Baldwinsville Public Library (Lysander).

In 2019 we added electronic poll books to every polling place county wide.  This not only makes it easier to check in voter it gives us some data that we weren’t ever able to get before, the check-ins by hour on Election Day is one of those stats.  We can see that the 2024 June primary, and all primaries, show a definitive pattern.  A rising tide of voters between 6am and 10am, The flow then levels off between 10am and 3pm.  Starting at 4pm we see our biggest rush as voters get out of work and vote, which lasts until 6pm.  From 6pm to 9pm we see a steady decline in check ins until it reaches zero. 

The turnout for the June 2024 primary was just 14.79%.  We saw 22,381 voters.  129,170 voters who were eligible to vote chose not to.  Primaries are closed in New York and 154,551 voters in Onondaga County were not eligible to vote in this primary.  Democrats made up 86% of the voters who cast a ballot (19303), Republicans were just 14% (3,056 voters).  Conservatives several small primaries that just had 21 voters (<1%).  This means Democrats had 16.69% turnout of their eligible voters, Republicans 8.37% of their eligible voters, and Conservatives 21.25% of their eligible voters.

In primaries Democrats tend to outperform Republicans in terms of frequency and turnout. Democrats who are often challengers to incumbents, tend to have a primary of some sort each year.  Since 2009 we have had 21 separate primary events where Democrats participated in 19 of them and the GOP just 12.  We have not had a year where there was not a primary, even if it is a small one.   Notably the June 2024 primary Democrats (16.69%) turned out at nearly double the rate of Republicans (8.37%).  The last time that happened was the 2020 combined congressional and presidential primaries.

When looking at turnout by region the City of Syracuse tends to fare better then it does in General Elections. In General election the City of Syracuse lags the suburbs but in primaries the City of Syracuse tends to be more participatory.  4 of the 21 primary events since 2009 have been City of Syracuse only events.  In 9 of the primaries that were there were both suburban and city portions, the City of Syracuse outpaced the suburbs.  * Of the elections the suburbs outpaced the city.  The 2024 June primary was the latter.  The City of Syracuse had a turnout rate of 12.33%, the suburbs 15.93% for an overall turnout of 14.79%.

That is, it for this edition of the #weeklywonk. Because of the travel Armageddon and Biden’s decision to drop out this episode is dropping a little late.  I plan for my next edition to drop this weekend.  We will start to look at the political subdivisions in our county holding elections.  We start with Onondaga County as a family court seat is running county wide.  As always you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com to get all my content and election news updates.

There is an interesting wrinkle to last month’s primary results. We have had a race that apparently has received zero votes. The race for Town of Lafayette Election District 4 Conservative Committee race. There is apparently zero votes recorded in the race. Not even the candidates involved showed up to vote for themselves.

Onondaga County had 7 county committee primaries this June. 2 in the Republican party and 5 in the Conservative party. Most of these races were sleepy small turnout affairs with less than ten voters, though it is notable a GOP primary in Pompey garnered over 170 votes. A few races had candidates with zero votes, which is notable in and of itself. However the Lafayette 4 district race is the only contest in my recollection that will garner zero votes for all candidates, even from the participants.

How County Committee Races work.

Members of the public may not know this but County Committee members of the Democratic, Republican, and Conservative committees are technically elected offices. There are a maximum of two committee people for each election district. However when more than two committee people file designating petitions it can create a primary that is on the ballot for the annual June local and federal primary.

To run in a County Committee primary you must meet the following criteria: A.) The candidate must be enrolled in the party that you are wishing to represent. B.) The candidate must have petitions passed for you to run like any other candidate. C.) The candidate must live inside the Assembly District that the election district you want to represent falls in (though notably not the election district itself). That last criteria is an exception to most public offices that require you live in the political subdivision you represent. Because Election Districts are so small and often there will be more than two committee in an Election District who want to serve and they are placed outside their own election district.

In fact one of the participants in this primary, Robert E. Reinhardt, does not live in Lafayette District 4. Since he does not actually reside in the election district he could not vote in the primary. However James Dow and Glen Christoffel are actual conservative members of the district. Also they both signed their petitions to get themselves on the primary ballot. James Dow signed a petition with him and Robert Reinhardt on it and Glen Christoffel signed a petition with only himself on it. Their singular signatures were all that were needed since the Lafayette ED 4 conservative enrollment having only 20 enrolled conservative members. Needing only 5% of an enrolled population to have a valid petition that means one valid signature was all that was needed.

A proxy war that never materialized

So why was a primary forced in this race if no one, even the participants, were going to participate? The answer may lie in the petitions that created the primary and the witnesses that passed them. James Dow and Glen Christoffel signed the petitions but could not witness their own signature. The witnesses for the petitions were two old rivals, Christina Varga and Tom Dadey.

You may remember in last year’s election the Onondaga County Conservative party surprised many by endorsing Democrat Chuck Keller for the District Attorney race. This move is believed to be championed by Tom Dadey, a former Onondaga County GOP Chairman and now a member of the Conservative party of New York. Recent changes In election law made it impossible for William Fitzpatrick, a Republican, to pursue the Conservative line as he was not a member of the party. That is when Christina Varga entered the race, a former employee of the DA and a member of the Conservative party. She ended up winning the primary robbing the Democrat of the Conservative line and assured an eventual victory for DA Fitzpatrick.

So what now?

The Onondaga County Board of Elections has determined that indeed no ballots were cast in this race. Thus it will not be part of the hand-count this next week. Since there are no votes there can be no winner and the county committee seats are vacated and the district is not represented. The Onondaga County Conservative Committee will reorganize in September and during that meeting the members of the committee can vote to add members to the committee in that district and they will sit there until 2026.

County Committee Primaries Are Often Weird

It is still unclear why the participants in the primary that could vote, who did pass petitions decided not to vote in the Lafayette Conservative ED 4 primary. However the other primaries on primary night were all weird, though in less spectacular ways. We have another rare instance of a tie in Republican Lysander ED 3. In this race the challenging committee member Anthony Gorgievski got 15 votes and the sitting committee members, Joseph and Holly Briere got 7 votes a piece. This race will be part of the hand-count on Tuesday and if this result stands the tie will result in neither Joseph or Holly being sat and the GOP committee will have to choose in September which one will go into the 2nd spot.

Other notable races were the 4 other Conservative primary races, one in Onondaga, and 3 in Salina. The race in Onondaga was another primary organized by Tom Dadey and resulted in no votes for the challenging candidate. The three races in Salina seem to be organized by sitting GOP legislator Colleen Gunnip to replace sitting Conservative members, including the Salina Conservative chair Bri Paro. In an interesting wrinkle here it seems the sitting members got zero votes and the challengers won.

That is it for this week. Next week the #WeeklyWonk returns to its normal statistical basis as I start my analysis of the June Congressional Primary that is concluding this next week. First up I look at Early And Vote By Mail participation for the primary. As always you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.