Elections Professional and Activist
“Allowing these nine days for people to choose where to vote,” he added, “And we have more sites than ever, more hours than ever, It gives them more chances to be able to vote in this very important election.”
https://www.localsyr.com/news/local-news/second-day-of-early-voting-in-central-new-york/
Welcome to the #WeeklyWonk. This is my weekly blog about statistics, registration data, and election law on my website, dustinczarny.com. This is a rebrand of my #wonkywednesday and #sundaythoughts columns I have been writing since 2020. In merging these two side projects together I am hoping to be a little more regular in my production. I have also not tied myself to a particular day to release these columns, hoping to release them weekly on the weekend. This way I can have more time to gather the statistics and resources that I want to devote to these articles. This week I examine The Town of Onondaga.
Like Dewitt & Manlius, The Town of Onondaga has one race up this year, a single Town board member seat. Normally towns elect their local offices on odd numbered years. Like Manlius, John Mahar a sitting Town Councilor John Mahar ran in 2021 for Town Supervisor. He was unopposed and won the seat which created the opening in this year’s race to fill the vacancy of the town Board seat. The all-GOP Town Board appointed someone to serve this year, but he has a Democratic challenger. The winner of this year’s race will have to run again next year.
Onondaga is one of the newer towns to have a Democratic plurality. The emerging Democratic influence in the town as of yet has not produced an electoral victory but the Town Committee is energized and working. Democrats represent 33% of the town registered voters, followed closely by the GOP (31%) and closely in third the non-enrolled at 29%. It is about as even a split as any town in Onondaga County. The Town is broken up into two different County legislative district. OCL 15 which makes up 11% of the district consists of connective eds bordering the City of Syracuse and stretching to Manlius. The rest of the town (89%) is located in OCL 11.
The Town of Onondaga is the perfect example of the Trump effect on suburban communities. From 2009 to 2015 we did see a small decline in GOP enrollment, but the Democratic enrollment was stagnant. That was all supercharged in 2016 with the candidacy and election of Donald Trump. Since 2009 the Democrats have gained 942 voters while the GOP have lost 543 voters. The Non-enrolled also saw their numbers increase in a similar pattern, gaining 921 voters since 2009.
The two legislative districts work to separate the Democratic near suburbs from the rest of the town. OCL 15 has a decided Democratic makeup with non-enrolled actually outnumbering the GOP. OCL 11 is a split district with near equal enrollment for the Democrats and GOP and the Non-enrolled are not far behind. This will all change with redistricting, but this is what the GOP had in mind when they segmented this town in 2011.
In the top five comparative races we see this town while close in Democratic enrollment, it only seems to be evident in national elections. President Biden won this town by 11.96 points. However, John Katko who resides in nearby Camillus, won this town by 14.22% in 2020 and 12.10 in 2018. The GOP candidate for Governor in 2018 Marc Molinaro won it by 5.19% but that is below how he performed in other towns in Onondaga County. There are no real local races to look at as the town board and town wide positions were uncontested in 2019 & 2021. However, when we look at the Brindisi Fogel race for Supreme Court, we see that in low turnout elections this town is solidly GOP as Fogel won by 8.28% here despite losing the county overall.
Ryan Suser is running on the Democratic and Working Families line for Town Board in 2022. He is running against John Wheatley who will appear on the GOP and Conservative line. Wheatley sits on the Town Board because of his appointment to fill the vacancy earlier in the year.
That does it for this edition of the #WeeklyWonk. Next week I will attempt to do two #weeklyWonks again. The Towns of Pompey (Wednesday), and a quick look at Onondaga County as a whole (Sunday) for the last investigations before the General Election. Check back each week & subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and elections updates.
Czarny and other Democrats expressed concern that Republican election officials in New York were defying a court order at a time of national GOP efforts to sow confusion among voters and toss ballots.
“It’s still very concerning that it even went this far,” Czarny said.
Czarny said local boards were behind but “that doesn’t mean we can’t catch up. We have until Election Day.”
“We’ll be prepared for as much as the voters want to throw at us,” Onondaga County County Democratic Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny said. “I think we have to recognize that we live in a hyper-partisan time, and the Federal elections in 2018 were much higher turnout than we normally see in the midterm – slightly below presidential levels. I believe that’s what we’re going to see this year.”
https://www.wrvo.org/elections/2022-10-28/early-voting-begins-saturday-in-new-york
“It’s all about moving the counting back until after Election Day, sowing chaos, creating doubt and then in close elections, descending on them with teams of lawyers to try to throw out legitimately cast ballots,” said Dustin Czarny, the Democratic Commissioner for Onondaga County and the head of the Democratic Caucus for the New York State Elections Commissioners Association.
“It’s the Trumpification of the New York State GOP that we’re seeing in other states and haven’t seen in New York until now,” he added.
This week I sit down with Syracuse’s newest elected official, Jimmy Monto, 5th district councilor for the City of Syracuse. We talk about jumping into a political race late into the system and his decisive vote on the Syracuse Redistricting Commission maps. Enjoy.
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Today I preview #earlyvotingwhich starts in New York on Saturday October 29th. You can get all your early voting information at http://www.ongov.net/elections/early-voting.html.
I also talk a bit on the status of the absentee lawsuit. It is important to remember what is at stake here is when ballots will be counted, not if. Voters should be returning absentee ballots asap!
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In this bonus Zoom with Czarny I speak to Toby Shelley. Toby is running for Onondaga County Sheriff. We learn about his vision for the office and how he plans to win this county-wide race.
Visit Toby Shelley here:
Web: https://shelleyforsheriff.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100079868378909
Subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all election news and content updates
Welcome to the #WeeklyWonk. This is my weekly blog about statistics, registration data, and election law on my website, dustinczarny.com. This is a rebrand of my #wonkywednesday and #sundaythoughts columns I have been writing since 2020. In merging these two side projects together I am hoping to be a little more regular in my production. I have also not tied myself to a particular day to release these columns, hoping to release them weekly on the weekend. This way I can have more time to gather the statistics and resources that I want to devote to these articles. This week I examine The Town of Manlius.
The Town of Manlius has one race up this year, a single Town board member seat. Normally towns elect their local offices on odd numbered years. However last year then Town Board member John Deer won an election to become Town Supervisor. This meant he had to vacate his seat on the Town Board. That created a to-fill vacancy on the Manlius Town Board. The election this year will be to fill John Deer’s remaining term which ends in 2023. This means whoever wins will have to run for re-election in 2023. The Town Board nominated former Town Board member Alyssa Italiano to serve this year and she is running for election to fill the vacancy.
Manlius is an up-and-coming Democratic Town. Other than Dewitt and Syracuse it is the third most Democratic town in Onondaga County. The Town Supervisor, all six Town Board Members, and one of the 2 Town Justices are all represented by Democrats. Manlius has an ascendent Democratic Plurality. Democrats account for the plurality of voters at 36%. The GOP is barely in second place with 29% of the vote followed by the non-enrolled also at 29%. For the purpose of regional breakdowns, I will look at the county legislature districts that make up the town of Manlius is carved up into three legislative districts. Eighty-eight percent of the voters reside in OCL 10 which includes the three villages of Minoa, Fayetteville, and Manlius. Eight percent is in OCL 3 which is the Northern most portion of Manlius. Four percent in OCL 12 which southernmost portion of Manlius.
The rise of the Democratic plurality in Manlius can once again be attributed as a reaction to the Trump election in 2016. Since 2009 Democrats have gained 1,900 voters while the GOP has lost 1,362. The non-enrolled have gained 1365 voters and are now four voters behind the GOP. After seeing a major rise during 2016, Democrats overtook the GOP in 2017, which happened to be the first year Democrats won a Town Board office. Since then, Democrats have won every competitive town wide seat in both 2019 & 2021.
Despite being broken up into three legislative districts, proportionally they are similar. The main difference is size with OCL 10 dwarfing both OCL 3 & 12. The main district, OCL 10, has a large Democratic lead over the GOP. OCL 3, the northern portion, is more of n even split though there are more non-enrolled than GOP in it. OCL 12 may be the most “conservative” of the three districts with GOP close to the Dems though also the non-enrolled outnumbers the GOP there as well.
In the top five comparative races we see solid Democratic performance to go along with the registration. All of the races the Democrat won but they are often closer when you look at the local races. President Biden dominated Manlius winning by 29.38% points in 2020. Dana Balter did win Manlius in 2018 (+5.78%) and 2020 (+0.44%). Her underperformance in 2020 could be chalked up to the 4.14% of votes on the WFP line for Steve Williams. Governor Cuomo won Manlius by +5.94% which is a solid performance for him upstate. There best local race to compare to was last year’s Supervisor race which was an open seat with a one-to-one matchup similar to the Town Board race this year. John Deer won the Manlius supervisor race by +3.81 points in 2021.
Alyssa Italiano is running on the Democratic and Working Families line for Town Board in 2022. She is running against David Barnwell who will appear on the GOP and Conservative line.
That does it for this bonus edition of the #WeeklyWonk. Next week I will attempt to do two #weeklyWonks again. The Towns of Onondaga (w2ednesday), and Town of Pompey (Sunday) are on deck for the last investigations before the General Election. Check back each week & subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and elections updates.
On October 21, 2022 I had the honor of speaking for the Protect our Freedoms rally in front of the James Handley Federal Building. I spoke about the importance of our Democracy, protecting election workers, and believing and accepting results.
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Dustin M. Czarny