Elections Professional and Activist
I was honored to appear on “From the Lobby” with my friend Alec Lews of O’Donnell & Associates. We got to talk about election administration, the end-of-year legislation push, and election integrity. Check it out.
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In this seminar I go over all the rules and regulations around voting by absentee in 2023 with a focus on the upcoming June Primary. you can apply for an absentee ballot by visiting onvote.net.
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I talk this week about the new Family Court seats that are opening up because of retirements. These candidates for these seats are chosen by the parties not voters through the primary because of the late date of the retirement.
For more information on how late vacancies play havoc on our political season read my #weeklywonk from last year https://dustinczarny.com/2022/07/04/sunday-thoughts-the-tangled-web-woven-by-late-vacancies-in-the-political-calendar/
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The annual mailcheck cards are here. I am urging you to #keepthecard. It has all kinds of useful information on it. Polling Place, representation, election information, and barcodes for fast check in at the polls.
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I have said this before but Ill say it again. The Trump Town Hall last night once again crystalizes the issue we face as a country. It is about the right’s view that they dont just have differences with the majority of the country, but that they are superior than the majority.
This justifies the cruelty. It justifies the hypocrisy. It justifies attacking our Democracy. It justifies inequity in resources. It justifies using government to propel their personal and political fortunes. It justifies anything because their superiority is what matters most.
We no longer have the luxury of being surprised by this. We have known for years that the national GOP instead of moderating their unpopular positions has decided to embrace this philosophy of superiority for short term Democratic gains. We must unite and fight against it.
We still have a chance. Its at the ballot box. Its at the ballot box every year. We can not continue to ignore those who embrace this dangerous philosophy as harmless because they aren’t running for federal office. Local elections breed future leaders. We must vote our way out.
It is the only way, and it will not be one election. It will not be only Presidential years. It is a generational struggle that we must engage even if we are tired. Even if we lose some races. Even if we stumble along the way. We must rise up and vote our way out every year.
I appeared on Central Current Radio on May 4, 2023 to preview the upcoming June primary. I also talked about the push for election legislation in the NYS legislature as they look to close
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Today I talk about the top 6 legislative priorities for the NYSECA Democratic Caucus and the efforts to pass this legislation before session ends next month.
Here is a link to our letter outlining them here:
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(Today I sent a letter to Governor Hochul, Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, and Speaker Heastie as they prepare for the final month of the NYS legislative session. For transparency’s sake I am posting it here. Read our full list of legislative priorities and get access to our Memorandums of Support here.)
Governor Kathy Hochul
Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins
Speaker Carl E. Heastie
NYS Capitol Building
State St. and Washington Ave.
Albany, NY 12224
May 8, 2023
RE: NYSECA Democratic Caucus supported legislation for the end of the legislative session.
Dear Governor Hochul, Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, and Speaker Heastie,
Congratulations on surviving another budget season. I wanted to take a moment to thank you for the investments that you made in our Democracy through the New York State Budget. Your historic investments include over $20 million for the New York State Board of Elections ($18,841,000 for Operations and #5,408,000 for Enforcement), $19 million for County Board of Elections ($4,000,00 in Postage Reimbursement and $15,000,000 in Tech Upgrades), and $40 million for Public Campaign Finance Boards ($14,54800 in Operations and $25,000,000) in general funding. These investments will help us administer the 2023 elections and set us up for success in 2024. Thank you for showing New York’s strong commitment to our Democracy.
We have just a little over a month left in the 2023 legislative session and now our attention turns to desperately needed legislation that will also improve our Democracy. I have attached the Democratic Caucus of NYS Elections Commissioner Association Legislative priorities for 2023. We have also included a list of bills brought to us by members for our support. I want to draw attention to six different bills that are our top priorities. All six of our top priorities have bi-partisan backing of the NYS Elections Commissioner Association.
Top Priorities of the NYSECA Democratic Caucus
S644/A1258 Minimum Staffing Bill (Already Passed NY Senate)
This bill clarifies what a minimum staffing allocation is for the County Board of Elections. As we have added more responsibilities. New York has a vested interest in ensuring the reforms passed by the legislature can be conducted by the County Board of Elections. This bill will increase staffing to approximately 20 Boards of Elections as we prepare for the 2024 Presidential Elections. This staffing will ensure that Boards will not be overwhelmed by the added registration requirements that are coming online this year, such as 10-day constitutional minimum, automatic, and online voter registration. This bill will ensure that voters in all counties have the bare minimum level of service from their county boards of elections while also ensuring that counties have the proper staff for the increase in voter registration expected with online and automatic voter registration coming this year.
S611/A919 Mandate Full-Time Elections Commissioners Statewide (Already passed NY Senate)
We have a full-time political calendar in New York State. We have Village Elections in March and June, School Board Elections in May, Primary elections in June, Town Caucuses, Inspector Training and Judicial conventions during the summer, and of course the General Election in November. Sixteen counties outside New York City still have part time commissioners. We have a full-time calendar in New York State, we need full-time commissioners.
A4777 (Awaiting Senate Bill #) Move Commissioner terms to 4-year statewide.
We believe Elections Commissioners should be evaluated on the 4-year cycle of elections we have in New York. The Presidential and Gubernatorial election years are separated by two local years. Having a four-year cycle will allow election commissioners to navigate the challenges of each year before having to stand for re-appointment. It will also allow elections commissioners to make proper decisions based on Election Law, precedent, and proper equity in their Board decisions without having the shadow of a 2-year term hanging over their employment.
S5537A (Awaiting Assembly Bill #) Allowing Vote Centers on Election Day.
New York currently authorizes and encourages vote centers for Early Voting. This legislation will allow the county boards with the resources and desire to do so to use voting centers for primary and general election days. Counties wishing to participate will submit a plan to the NYS Board of Elections to ensure adequate staffing and equipment. This is a permissive bill and will allow counties ready to move to a vote center model permission to do so.
S2024/A4294 Mandating Non-student attendance day on Election Day and Primary Day
It has become increasingly hard for Boards of Elections to find HAVA acceptable buildings for use as polling places. Many schools in urban, suburban, and rural are the only acceptable buildings for voters to gather in. The COVID pandemic has exacerbated this problem, as traditional polling places such as churches and nursing homes have either closed or refused to be polling places. This is an artful way to ensure the public has adequate polling places and protect students without affecting instructional days.
S1014/A1259 Reducing threshold for the Mandatory Hand Count
It is the experience of our county boards that only the closest of races where voter intent on the ballot comes into play can result in a lead change. We believe allowing for alternative scans on races under .5% but over .25% is sufficient to determine the machine counts are correct. This will allow Boards of Elections to expend their limited resources on the races that are truly deserving of the hand count, those races that are .25% or less separating the vote leader and those trailing.
I have attached our support memos on all these bills to this email. I am available to meet with you and your staff about these priorities. I will be traveling to Albany May 16th, 23, and 31st if you would like to arrange in-person meetings. I can also be available for zoom and conference calls on other days. Thank you for all you have done for New York Voters. I look forward to collaborating with you in the close of the 2023 session as well as in the years to come.
Sincerely,
Dustin Czarny
Democratic Caucus Chair, NYSECA
Welcome back to #WeeklyWonk. Each weekend I publish 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. I am turning my eye to the 2023 elections and the political subdivision having races. Today I investigate the Village of Liverpool, an emerging Democratic community in Onondaga County.
The Village of Liverpool sits in the Town of Salina in the northern suburbs of the City of Syracuse. This lake community is the home of Onondaga Lake Park and sits on the edge of Onondaga Lake. The makeup of Dewitt is 40% Democrat (687 Voters), 26% GOP (435 Voters), and 28% non-Enrolled (477 voters). Liverpool elects its leadership village wide in June elections. It is divided into two different election districts, ED 3 (West) and ED 4 (East). Ed 3 (991 voters 58%) is bigger than ED 4 (719 voters 42%).
In a new feature I am bringing to the #weeklywonk this year I am doing a heat map for each political subdivision. I will be looking at the current partisan makeup of each individual ED and heat mapping its partisan lean based on the advantage for the Democrats and GOP. With only two EDS we see that Liverpool is solidly Democratic. ED 3 has a moderate Democratic lean between +10-15%. ED 4 has a strong Democratic lean between +15-20%.
Since 2012 The Village of Liverpool went from a solid GOP village to an emerging Democratic community. Democrats have gained 185 voters while the GOP lost 100 voters. The Non-enrolled has seen only a small gain of 42 voters. The Trump years was a driving factor in the increasing Democratic community in Liverpool, but it has continued after those years as well. The GOP has seen a small consistent decrease each year as their enrollment is not being replaced. The Non-enrolled gains, unlike other areas of Onondaga County, only have come recently but they did overtake the GOP finally in 2021.
The election districts of Liverpool are on either side of Oswego St. splitting the Village into two halves. ED 3 is the western more populous district. Democrats dominate this district 398 DEM to 259 GOP and 275 Non-enrolled. This gives Democrats an advantage of +14.03%. Democrats do even better in the eastern district of ED 4 with 289 DEM to 176 GOP and 275 Non-enrolled. That gives Democrats a partisan advantage of +15.72%.
Looking at the growth of voters since the last redistricting cycle we compare it with date from May 2012. The Village of Liverpool grew by 100 active voters. The growth comes solely in the Western ED 4 which gained all 100 voters. The eastern region of ED 3 has the same number of active voters as they did in 2012.
The Village of Liverpool Democratic advantage has grown by 17.10% since 2012, outpacing Onondaga County overall. Both EDS grew in Democratic advantage, but at different rates. The eastern ED 4 did not see any raw voter growth but did gain in Democratic advantage by +13.91%. The story of Liverpool’s Democratic switch though lies in the western ED 3. Not only was all the voter growth there, but Democratic advantage also grew by +19.75%. ED 3 was what gave Liverpool a GOP lead in 2012 and its complete 260 and voter growth is driving the Democratic voter rise in the village.
When we look at the comparative races, we see why Democrats run extremely well in the village. In 2019 Dan Kolinski for County Clerk garnered 52.91% of the vote, 5.18% ahead of his Onondaga County rate. President Biden in 2020 63.10% of the vote, 4.22% ahead of his Onondaga rate. In 2021 Anthony Brindisi for Supreme Court garnered 61.34% of the vote, 8.84% behind his GOP rate. In 2022 Governor Hochul garnered 63.29% of the vote, 9.51% ahead of her Onondaga County rate. These statistics are some of the most Partly due to inactivity and partly due to the odd timing of the June elections the Democrats have not run candidates on their line whole The GOP has consistently run candidates on their line. This means there are no local races to compare to.
In 2023 the Salina Town Democrats are running a full slate on the Democratic line in the Village of Liverpool. They held their first caucus in over 20 years and had a unanimous nomination for their candidates, Stacey Finney is running for Mayor and Melissa Cassidy and Rachel Ciotti are running for Village Board. Their election is June 20, 2023. You can follow the Salina Democrats here to follow their campaign: https://www.facebook.com/groups/214715395537.
That is, it for this week’s edition of the #WeeklyWonk. Next week I look at the other village having a June election, the village of North Syracuse. As always go to dustinczarny.com and subscribe to get all your content and election news updates. I run that website, along with these series of articles, as part of my voter education. I never take ad money or charge subscriptions paying for the site with my own personal funds. Subscribe here.
(As Chair of the Democratic Caucus of NYSECA I will from time to time issue Memorandums of Support on Election bills before the NYS Legislature. I am posting them on my website for lawmakers and the public to know our positions. You can see my caucus’ legislative priorities here as well as the Bi-Partisan Legislative agenda for NYSECA here. This bill is part of a list of bills that we were asked to consider by Assembly members or Senators to support. You can read that list here. If you agree with this bill consider contacting your local representative and asking them to support the bill.)
Memorandum of Support
Sponsor: Skoufis/Jacobsen
Summary: Relates to requiring electors to vote for the presidential and vice-presidential candidate who was nominated by the political party that nominated the presidential elector.
Justification: The NYS Election Commissioners Association Democratic Caucus supports S438/A928, which requires electors to vote for the presidential and vice-presidential candidate who were nominated by the political party that nominated the presidential elector.
The practice of faithless electors in the United States poses significant dangers to the integrity and stability of the electoral process. This undermines the fundamental principle of representative democracy, where the will of the people is supposed to be reflected in the outcome of the electoral process. Faithless electors can disrupt the outcome of a presidential election, leading to confusion, distrust, and legal challenges. It can also erode public confidence in the electoral system and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the entire election. Additionally, faithless electors can create a situation where the candidate who did not win the popular vote in a state ends up receiving its electoral votes, which goes against the concept of "one person, one vote." The potential for faithless electors to subvert the democratic will of the people and inject uncertainty into the electoral process poses significant dangers and undermines the fundamental principles of democracy.
The Democratic Caucus supports this bill. Passing this bill will strengthen the backbone of our bi-partisan election system in New York and we urge the legislature to pass this bill and the Governor to sign it as soon as possible.
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Dustin M. Czarny