Welcome back to the #weeklywonk.  Each week I investigate a political subdivision or election result here in Onondaag County and sometimes beyond.  I analyze electoral and registration data to illuminate how voters are behaving and interacting with our Democracy.  This week I start my two parts look back at the April 2^nd Presidential Primary.  I start off by looking at alternative voting methods, Early, Absentee, and Affidavits and how voters used these methods this last election.

In the 2024 Presidential election we had 1208 voter check-ins during the Early Voting Period.  The April 2^nd Presidential Primary only had two parties involved, Democrat and Republican.  808 (67%) of the Early Voters are Democrat while 400 (33%) were Republican.  We opened 8 sites for the Presidential Primary on April 2^nd.  The number of sites we open is dependent on the number of eligible voters for the primary, 1 for every 30k voters.  There were nearly 200k eligible voters mandated at least 7 sites, and we opened 8.  The reason for that is we were forced to make the decision on February 16^th when other states were showing record turnout.  Of the 8 sites opened they fell into 3 levels of activity. 

Dewitt Town Hall (296 25%) was the largest turnout as usual, followed by Clay Town Hall (253 21%) which made up the heaviest usage.  The next four sites were all Moderate usage:  Armond Magnarelli (163 13%), Camillus Fire Department (133 11%), OCC Mulroy Hall (110 9%), & Lysander Municipal Building (103 9%).  The smallest sites once again belonged to Beauchamp Library (75 6%) and Lafayette Fire Station (70 6%).  Dewitt Town Hall and Clay town hall continue their ranks over the years of being top sites when they are selected as sites for primaries.  Beauchamp and Lafayette Continue to be the lowest performing over the years.  However, site performance is not the only reason to select a site, Lafayette Fire Station services voters in the southern part of the county and Beauchamp in the inner city.

Early Voting took a bit of a hit this primary in terms of raw voters and percentage of the overall vote.  Primaries are imperfect elections to compare to each other in the raw vote totals.  There are different numbers of eligible voters for each primary.  In the 2024 Primary all GOP and Democratic voters were eligible.  The best comparisons are the two primaries from 2022.  1208 Early Voters in 2024 compared to 2761 in June of 2022 and 4154 UN August of 2022 shows what a low turnout election this was.  However usually even in low turnout over the last five primaries we had seen usage of Early Voting grow in terms of percentage of overall vote.  However, 2024 we saw that percentage dip to just 10.58%, the lowest since 2021. There are clues as to why this was the case later in this article.

When we look at a comparison of parties that used Early Voting, we can see that Democrats continue to use this alternative voting method at a greater rate. There are more Democrats that Republicans in Onondaga County, so we expect them to outnumber the GOP, however they also are voting at a greater rate.  When we look at percentage of the overall voter population in 2024 .7% of the Democrats showed up to Early Vote, while .49% of the GOP did.  When looking at the percentage of the voters that chose to vote Democrats led the GOP 12.06% to 8.48%.  However, the gap does appear to have closed in the last few primaries and that may be because the anti-Early Vote rhetoric is not as prevalent in the GOP side during a primary as opposed to General Elections.

As we look to mail voting there is an interesting story to tell.  There are new options for voters when it comes to voting by mail this year, starting with this primary.  There is an Early Vote by mail option which eliminates the excuses that absentee voting requires.  However absentee voting is still an option as it is a permanent option for every election as opposed to EVBM which must be selected each year.  In purpose of reporting and tabulating they are done together in our system as Mail in voting.  We issued 5216 mail ballots for the 2024 primary.  2483 were successfully cast &2733 were never returned. 342 ballots were returned undeliverable to the address on file and an additional 40 were rued invalid. Of the 40 ruled invalid 35 were because the postmark was after Election Day, 3 were because the voter wanted to cancel the ballot after returning, 1 because they voted in person at a polling place, and 1 because they voted affidavit. Of the 2483 successfully returned ballots Democrats had 1638 (66%) and the Republicans had 845 (34%).

When looking at mail balloting by year in terms of raw numbers it is comparable to the two previous similar primaries in 2022.  2483 ballots returned out of 5214 ballots requested is like 2022 June (2628/4944) and August (3069/5824).  However, where this primary stands out is the percentage of the overall vote that was cast by mail.  The 2024 primary had 21.69% of the overall ballots cast were cast by mail.  This is the highest percentage since the record of June 2020 in the middle of the pandemic which saw 69.96% of the ballots cast by mail.  There are several reasons why this occurred.  The EVBM option made it easier to chose mail in balloting.  The postage paid option removed a barrier to casting ballots.  However, the biggest reason may be that when mail ballots were sent out in mid-February the Presidential primary still had active candidates on both sides of the aisle.  Nikki Haley and Dean Phillips pulled out after the Super Tuesday contests in early March which made the April 2^nd primary in New York fait accompli.  This made Early Voting and Election Day turnout smaller than normally expected increasing the returned absentee influence on the election.

The last form of alternative voting is voting by affidavit balloting.  Affidavits are cast by voters who are not listed as active voters at their current address when they show up in person to Early or Election Day.  In the 2024 Presidential primary we had 72 voters who voted by Affidavit.  54 ballots were ruled valid:  22 were voters that changed their address, 14 were voters who applied for but did not return a mail ballot, 8 were voters classified as Inactive, 4 were CBOE transfers from other counties, and 1 a name change.  Of the 72 Affidavit ballots 39 were Democrat, 19 Republican, and 14 were of voters by another party.  Since New York is a closed party state, all non-Democrat and non-Republican affidavits were rejected, and the voters properly registered for future elections.  In addition, 1 voter had already returned a mail in ballot and 1 voter returned an affidavit envelop with no ballot.  That means 77.78% of all affidavit voters had their ballots accepted and counted. 

That is all for this week’s edition of the #weeklywonk.  Next week I will conclude my look back at the April 2 Presidential Primary with a look at Election Day and overall turnout.  As always you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.

Welcome back to the #weeklywonk. The first few months of the year I have had some tough times getting back into my content schedule. However, as April dawns I am rededicating myself to my content, including this weekly write-up on electoral and registration data in Onondaga County and New York. Each week I will examine some data from a recent election or a political subdivision having a competitive election later this year. This week we wrap up the March 19yth village elections of Baldwinsville, Fayetteville, and Minoa.

On March 19^th Onondaga County had five villages that had regularly scheduled elections. The villages of Fabius and Marcellus were run by the village clerks and the data is not readily available. So, for this week’s deep dive I am looking solely at the villages of Baldwinsville, Fayetteville, and Minoa. Baldwinsville had two proposals about moving the village election to June or November, and a full slate of village board candidates. Fayetteville also had a proposal to move the election to November and competitive races for Mayor and village trustee. Minoa though had no competition for Mayor or village trustee but did have a non-controversial proposition regarding volunteer firefighters.

The village of Baldwinsville had 849 voters participate in the March 2024 Election. This was the first year that Onondaga County Board of Elections ran their elections so past data is not readily available, however the voter turnout in previous elections was much smaller. Baldwinsville is the largest village with 5307 voters. So even this elevated level of turnout was only 15.88% turnout, much lower than even the lowest November elections. There is no Early Voting in village elections and only sixty-eight voters decided to vote absentee/Early Vote by mail. That is approximately 1% of the village, and just 8% of the electorate. Baldwinsville is basically a split partisan village and the candidates do not run on party lines, but Democrats were in general more enthused to participate in the election. Democrats turned out at 20.80% while the GOP at 14.33% and the non-enrolled at 13.16%.

The village of Fayetteville had 1096 voters in the March 2024 Election. This follows a trend of higher-than-average turnout for village elections, in Fayetteville. 33.11% turnout was recorded which rivals odd year November elections but still falls far below even year November elections. Fayetteville voters took more advantage of the new Early Voting by Mail options with 118 voters choosing to vote by mail. That represents 4% of the village and 10.77% of the voting electorate. Democrats are the ascendant party in Fayetteville and were slightly more enthused than GOP voters. Democrats had 37.99% turnout compared to 34.31% for the GOP, and 24.95 % of the non-enrolled.

The village of Minoa had a more typical March village election. There was no competition for the village trustee races and no proposition to move the election, only a proposition about volunteer firefighter service awards. This lack of competition resulted in an extremely low turnout. Overall turnout in the Minoa village election was just 198 voters or just 8.06%. Only twenty-six voters chose absentee, about 1% of the village and 13.13% of the electorate. 172 voted on Election Day, about 7% of the village. Democrats had 8.93% turnout and GOP 9.34% while the non-enrolled trailed at 6.38%.

In many ways the March village elections were defined by citizen led movements in the villages of Baldwinsville and Fayetteville to abandon low turnout March elections and align their elections with the November calendar. In both villages citizens walked petitions to force a ballot question to move the election then had slates of candidates align with that and run on it. They were both successful despite fervent opposition from the sitting village establishment. In Baldwinsville that opposition resulted in a competing proposition to move elections to June, but voters saw through that. The June proposition failed with only 35.34% of the voters voting for it. The November proposition in Baldwinsville was extremely popular, winning 54.89% of the vote. In Fayetteville there was no competing proposition but years of denial by the village board. The proposition to move to November was overwhelmingly popular with voters with 60.67% of the vote. The November move to Fayetteville will have immediate impact as Mike Smalls, a sitting trustee was elected Mayor. That means his trustee position will be up for election to fill the vacancy this November.

That is all for this edition of the #weeklywonk. Next week I will start to look back at the Presidential Primary leading off with Early Voting and Mail in balloting. As always you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.