Welcome back to the #WeeklyWonk.  This weekly column investigates an electoral aspect of Onondaga County or New York State. I am currently in my end of year review. This has been slightly delayed as the election was not certified because of the county-wide hand count for the County Clerk race. However, we are just in time to wrap up the 2023 General Election. I am on my final look back at the 2023 General election looking at the Election Day and Overall Turnout.

We had 90,744 voters in the 2023 General election. As of closing the books before the election Onondaga County had 306,077 eligible voters. That means 215,333 voters stayed home. A turnout percentage of 29.65%. the lowest since 2015. The voter turnout by party was Democrat 41%. Republican 34%, Non/enrolled 20%, Others 3%, Conservatives 2%, and Working families less than 1%. We get our first clue of why Democrats did particularly well as they led Early and Absentee voting as we saw last week, but they also led Election Day as well. Election Day check-ins were led by Democrats (38%), followed by GOP (36%), None-enrolled (20%), and third parties 6%.

Like Early Voting and absentee, we now have three data sets of similar elections to look to see how that population is changing:  2019, 2021, and 2023. We can see a slight but steady decline in overall voters as well as percentage of the actual vote. The 72,595 voters that chose Election Day in 2023 is down from 78.564 in 2021, and 95,352 in 2019. Of course, overall voters were down as well so we have to look at the percentage of the overall vote that Election Day represents. There too we see a steady decrease from 88.6% in 2019, 83.3% in 3031, and 80.0% in 2023. Voters are choosing alternative voting options, absentee and Early Voting, at a more frequent rate each year. We will need to see more even year elections before we can analyze those populations however it does look as if non-frequent voters in those elections prefer the alternative voting even more.

We actually had some changes to the top ten Polling places from last year with six new sites vaulting into the top ten.  That is because redistricting gave us an opportunity to look at some of our highest polling places and restructure to address some of the largest lines, we saw in 2022 to get ready for the 2024 Presidential election. Some of the biggest sites from last year dropped off because of this:  North Syracuse School District, Marcellus Fire House, Bucley Road Baptist Church, East Syracuse Fire Station, Camillus Municipal building, and Baldwinsville Public Library.  It is no surprise though that all ten of our top ten sites are Town sites that tend to be larger as there are fewer acceptable sites and cater to a more mobile population than City sites that have more population without vehicle access.

Before 2019 it was impossible to track how voters were processed each hour in our polling places, but then we did a full roll out of electronic poll books which now allows us to track that data. Unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to get the 2019 data before it was deleted (It only has a two-year retention rate). But now we have a full four-year cycle of hourly check-ins. 2023 really mimicked 2021 and in the morning actually outpaced it. However, at 10 am there was a notable and consistent drop off from. e 2021 rate.  The pattern held the same, slow morning a steady increase till 10am, then a steady volume until 4pm and 5pm after work rush then dwindling rapidly until 9pm.

When looking at City vs Suburban voting, the City of Syracuse continued its trailing of suburban voter participation rates. Overall turnout was 29.65%. The towns turned out at a rate of 31.69%. The city turned out at a rate of 8.76%. That is a turnout deficit of 8.76%. That is near the 15-year average of 7.93% deficit. Ironically in odd years is where the city has had less dramatic deficits than the federal elections where the deficit is more dramatic because of surges in the Towns. The only two years since 2009 where City turnout was higher than Town turnout are 2009 & 2017. We had competitive seeming open mayoral elections in each of those years (2009 Stephanie Miner and 2017 Ben Walsh) that drove city voters to the polls.

Where 2023 really changed was in party turnout deficits. There has never been a year where Democrat population has turned out in as high a percentage as the GOP population. Likewise, the non-enrolled squarely sits in third place each year. Remember Democrats and non-enrolled voters outnumber Republican voters, so even though they trail in percentage turnout Democrats usually outnumber GOP at the polls in modern elections. The name of the game is to reduce the deficit. In years where Democrats close in on the GOP they do well. Those are usually Presidential years, though 218 was a midterm that functioned as a Presidential. In odd years Democrats have specially trailed the GOP. The 7-point turnout deficit between the Democrats and the GOP is the lowest deficit since 2017 and lower than the average which is why they were successful in close county wide races like Family Court and County Clerk as well as some Town races.

My final slide is a new statistic I am going to keep track of. Starting in 2022 New York State mandated that any race that is within .5% between the leader and challenger must be recounted by hand to assure the ultimate outcome. Onondaga has become the king of hand counts. In 2022 we were part of the #sd50 hand count that counted 1130k ballots in Onondaga and Oswego County, 94k of which was in Onondaga County. We followed up again this year having to count all 91k ballots this year for the County Clerk race. We had three additional races that were close as well in 2023 Town Council Ward 3, Spafford Town Board, and Solval Village Ward 1. Despite these massive hand counts we see the deficit lead changed extraordinarily little. IN the SD50 race with 123148 votes cast John Mannion lost seventeen net votes from the final absentee canvass through the hand count process. In the County Clerk race Emily Essi lost sixteen votes out of 87430 votes cast. This shows the tremendous accuracy of our voting machines. I believe in the hand count law because it gives finality to the process. However, there is an argument for reform for the large ballot races where the lead changes have no chance to change the outcome. John Mannion’s 27 vote lead reducing to ten is definitely a race where a headcount is needed. Emily Essi’s 207 vote lead is an example of where the hand count was probably not needed. Moving the deficit to .25% would save Boards a good deal of time and money for an exercise that cannot change the results.

That is, it for this #weeklywonk. Next week I will rush to get the Election Day and Overall, Voter turnout investigation done before the holidays. I will then take some time off till the new year as we start to focus on 2024. When we get back in the new year, I will look at stats from my website dustinczarny.com. Enjoy the holidays and remember to subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.

Welcome back to the #WeeklyWonk.  This weekly column investigates an electoral aspect of Onondaga County or New York State. I am currently in my end of year review. This has been slightly delayed as the election was not certified because of the county-wide hand count for the County Clerk race. However, we are just in time to wrap up the 2023 General Election. Last week I talked about how Democrats fared electorally in Onondaga County; this week I start to dive into the states form the election. This week I investigate Early and Absentee voting and next week I look at Election Day and the overall Turnout numbers for 2023.

We had 90,812 voters take part in the 2023 Election, though not all of those voters had their ballot counted. Election Day remains the king for voter preference with 72,600 Election Day Check-ins on our Knowink Poll Pads. Early Voting is the next popular method with 12,680 voters, absentee had 5,103 voters who returned ballots, and another 429 voters cast affidavit ballots. Despite some of the changing rhetoric (though not action) of the NY State GOP, Democrats are still dominating Early and Absentee voting. In Early Voting Democrats made up 51% of the electorate, while the GOP made up 25% of the voters. Absentees tell a similar story though the GOP did a little better. Democrats made up 49% of the electorate and the GOP made up 29% of the electorate. The Democrats over performed their 38% registration rate, while the GOP was remarkably close to their 26.9% registration rate. The story here is the drop off of the non-enrolled voter. Non-enrolled voters make up 29% of the registration but just 20% of the Early Vote and 17% of the absentee.

We are now starting to get a good sense of how #earlyvoting is growing when it comes to the local, odd-year elections. Local odd-year elections have extremely low turnout, and their voters are more informed and more traditional, so they prefer the traditional Election Day voting method. We are still seeing a steady tick up in the raw voter counts as well as percentage of voters. In 2019 EV was 8,462 voters, and 7.87% of the vote, 2021 9,721 voters and 10.31% of the vote, and finally this year 12,680 voters and 13.96% of the vote. It will be harder to measure impact non even years until we get a few more cycles for Presidential and mid-term separately. The pandemic in 2020 is probably an aberration as well.

This is the second year we have had 10 Early Voting sites, up from 6 in 2019, 2020, and 2021 when the legislature forced Onondaga County to have more. We are starting to see we have four tiers of Early Voting sites. We have two small sites, Syracuse Community Connections (3%) & Beauchamp Library (3%) that serve under resourced communities. Four medium sites with Lafayette (7%). OCC Muloy Hall (8%), Armond Magnarelli 8%), & Lysander (8%) that provide closer sites to suburban populations. Two large sites Fire Station (12% and Clay Town Hall (15%) that serve large suburban populations. Finally, Dewitt Town Hall stands alone as a super site with 28% of the voters. The additional site has worked to take loads off Clay and Cicero by Dewitt remains the high-volume site winning four of the last five generals and every primary it participated in.

We are now starting to get a good sense of how #earlyvoting is growing when it comes to the local, odd-year elections. Local odd-year elections have extremely low turnout, and their voters are more informed and more traditional, so they prefer the traditional Election Day voting method. We are still seeing a steady tick up in the raw voter counts as well as percentage of voters. In 2019 EV was 8,462 voters, and 7.87% of the vote, 2021 9,721 voters and 10.31% of the vote, and finally this year 12,680 voters and 13.96% of the vote. It will be harder to measure impact non even years until we get a few more cycles for Presidential and mid-term separately. The pandemic in 2020 is probably an aberration as well.

Some NYS law changes are increasing the number of affidavits we receive but also making it harder to reject them. Example of those law changes are address changes from out of county no longer need a court order if they are registered in another county in NY State. In fact, we only had three court orders this year, and all were people not registered in NYS. Also, voters who requested but did not vote by absentee now have to vote by affidavit. This has brought the numbers up but also brought the valid numbers of ballots cast to 429 in 2023. A whopping 406 went under bipartisan review and validated. That is an acceptance rate of 94.64%. That is the highest I have on record going back to 2009.

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That does not mean that ballots were not invalidated. Both Absentees and Affidavit ballots were thrown out for a variety of reasons. For Absentees 157 ballots or 3.08% were rejected. Sixty-eight were returned not timely, or with postmarks after Election Day. Another forty-six did not return a cure affidavit that was sent to them for a variety of reasons but mostly signature mismatch., twenty-two voters were deceased when we canvassed the ballot, but presumably alive when they requested and filled out (we routinely look at these to determine if further investigation is needed). Eight voters did not return their Oath envelope that contains their signature, and we sent them a second ballot, however those were not returned. Ten others had assorted reasons. For Affidavits only twenty-six ballots were rejected. Eleven voted in person (usually at an old polling place). d thus the. affidavit was rejected.  Five voters did not properly fill out the envelope. Four voters were not registered. Two voters returned absentees and 1 Voter came in and voted Early. More ballots were rejected during the hand count which we will analyze next week

That is, it for this #weeklywonk. Next week I will rush to get the Election Day and Overall, Voter turnout investigation done before the holidays. I will then take some time off till the new year as we start to focus on 2024. Enjoy the holidays and remember to subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.

Welcome back to the #WeeklyWonk. Each weekend I release an article on a subject relating to elections in Onondaga County and New York State. Often these articles will have detailed stats to consume but sometimes they will be a recap of a prominent issue or on relevant election law. However, for the next few weeks I will be looking back at the 2023 General Election.  I start with a recap of how Democrats fared in the results.

While much of the story of the 2023 elections by the media was the re-election of County Executive Ryan McMahon, this simplistic look at one race masks a story of Democratic domination in county wide races.  If we look back over the last 4 years, there have been 24 races where Democrats and Republicans have fielded candidates running over the entire county.  This includes races that run over larger areas but contain the whole of Onondaga County.  In those races Democrats have come out on top 20 of those 24 times inside Onondaga County.  Adding all 24 races together Democrats have won on average 5.62%.  The biggest margin in the last four years is also last year’s highest vote getter, Onondaga County Comptroller Martin Masterpole.

When we look at Onondaga County office holders going into 2024 the office holders are starting to pile up for Democrats.  There are 10 judicial offices that run county wide, five Family Court, 1 Surrogate Court, and 3 County Court seats.  With their wins in 2023 all 5 Family Court seats now rest in Democratic hands, as does the Surrogate Court seat, and 1 of the 3 county court seats.  When we look at the county wide elected Democrats now hold 3 of 5 seats after years of holding none.  Marty Masterpole’s 2019 win broke the damn and was confirmed in his 2023 re-election.  The Democrats added County Sheriff with Toby Shelley’s win in 2022 and now County Clerk with Emily Essi this last year. However, despite their success countywide, the county legislature spread remains the same as it has since 2019, 11-6 GOP.  This is due to gerrymandered maps leading to lack of candidates.

Another way to look at how Democrats did in 2023 is to look at the number of races that flipped partisan control.  14 races changed party control in 2023, and Democrats won 11 of those 14 flips.  Democrats flipped two supervisors (Lysander and Skaneateles), 3 town board seats (Geddes and Salina Wards 1 & 2), two town justice seats (Dewitt & Manlius), the County Clerk, both Family Court seats, and Solvay Village Ward 1.  Republicans only flipped 3 seats, two of which were unopposed (Pompey Town Supervisor & Skaneateles Town Council).  They also flipped Solvay Village Ward 3.  Despite these gains Democrats could have had an even better day.   Because of a paperwork error Deb DeGillio remained on the ballot for Geddes Town Council despite also running for Solvay Village Ward 3.  The 500 votes she gained on the WFP line probable led to close losses for two other Democrats running for town board, and possibly her loss for Village Ward 3 as well.

The Democrats win in 2023 set up a more favorable map when it comes to controls of local governments, though they still have a long way to go.  The flips in Lysander and Skaneateles for Democrats two supervisors to go along with Manlius and Dewitt, though the loss in Pompey meant that they only added a net of one supervisor seat.  When it comes to town boards Democrats were able to fare even better.  They only lost one town board seat in Skaneateles but added a seat in Geddes and two in Salina.  Though Democrats only have control of Salina and Manlius, they are very close to gaining control in Salina, Geddes, and Spafford.  Even in Pompey where there is one Democrat, that Democrat is part of a coalition with two other GOP to have control of the board. 

That is all for this week’s Weekly Wonk.  Next week I will expand a look back at the 2023 General Election diving into Early Voting in the 2023 election.  After looking back at the 2023 election this column will turn its eyes to 2024.  Subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all election news and content related updates.