Welcome back to #wonkywednesday. Each week I take a deep dive into the registration and election data that makes up our home, Onondaga County. This week I continue my 4-week look back at the June 28, 2022, primary. This year we have two primaries because of the disastrous redistricting process in New York. On August 23^rd, 2022, we will have the primaries for Congress and NY Senate. However, we just certified the June primary where Onondaga County held Democratic and Republican primaries for Governor, a Democratic primary for Lt. Governor, and members of the Pompey Town GOP Committee. In other parts of New York Assembly primaries happened as well, but we had none in Onondaga County. This week I will examine Absentee & Election Day Balloting during the June 2022 Primary.

Election Day Balloting is still by far the most popular form of balloting. In the June 2022 primary it accounted for 81% of the ballots cast in the primary, while Early Voting was 9% and Absentee voting also 9%. We had two hundred Affidavit ballots, some were cast on Early Voting, some on Election Day but all were counted after Election Day, so we keep that count separate. Unlike Absentee and Early Voting, the use of Election Day is more split with the parties. Democrats made up 55% of the Election Day ballots while the GOP made up 45% of the ballots.

Early Voting for primaries did not start until the June combined Presidential and local primaries in 2020. Of course, the COVID crisis was in full swing at that point as well. The June 2022 primary not only had more Election Day voters then the previous two it was also the highest percentage of the last two years. This is mainly due to the drop in absentee voting as the COVID crisis wanes. Early Voting percentages have grown the last three years, but Election Day percentage for a primary was at an all-time high this year as fears over virus contraction saw voters abandon absentees and either vote Early or more often on Election Day.

We deployed 148 Polling Places for the June primary. Our top ten polling places is a list of the usual suspects based on voter enrollment. Some surprises are the N. Syracuse Community Center which saw a surge in activity because a nearby polling center (Bellewood Baptist Church) was merged into it for the June primary due to a scheduling issue. Gillette Road Middle School took on all of the election Districts of the old Believer’s chapel polling place that no longer wished to be a polling place after last year. The highest city site is Spiritual Renewal on the east side. We made some efforts to spread out the population of the American Valley Legon and Bellevue Heights Church in the city to reduce lines at these sites and that resulted in them dropping out of the top ten of polling sites.

In looking at voters per hours we are seeing a definitive pattern emerge for the last three primaries. No matter the size of Election Day turnout Primary day starts off light in the norming and steadily builds throughout the day. This reaches a crescendo of activity in the 5pm hour. Voter activity drops but stays strong comparatively right until 9pm. The few stragglers you see after9pm are voters who were in line before 9pm and polls closing.

Next week I will finish my look back at the June primary with a final wrap up on overall turnout. Later in August the #wonkywendesday series will be renamed the #WeeklyWonk and releasing on the weekends. This will allow me more time to get data and branch out with some editorial content on election reform. So, stay tuned for future articles.

Welcome back to #wonkywednesday. Each week I take a deep dive into the registration and election data that makes up our home, Onondaga County. This week I continue my 4-week look back at the June 28, 2022, primary. This year we have two primaries because of the disastrous redistricting process in New York. On August 23^rd, 2022, we will have the primaries for Congress and NY Senate. However, we just certified the June primary where Onondaga County held Democratic and Republican primaries for Governor, a Democratic primary for Lt. Governor, and members of the Pompey Town GOP Committee. In other parts of New York Assembly primaries happened as well, but we had none in Onondaga County. This week I will examine Absentee & Affidavit Balloting during the June 2022 Primary.

There are major changes for absentee balloting in 2022 that will undoubtedly affect the way voters interact with this election method. The major change is in the way absentee ballots are canvassed in 2022. We no longer are the last state in the nation to canvass absentee ballots as we now canvass them as they are returned and report on Election Night. This is down from 7 to 15 days after Election Day would we even start to canvass absentees. This along with several pieces of legislation makes it harder for absentees to be discarded by technicalities or challenged by unscrupulous campaigns. Finally, the pandemic excuse for absentee balloting remains in place in 2022. Starting in the August primary all absentee ballots will be postage paid also making it easier to return absentees as well.

Absentees, like Early Voting, is more used by Democrats than republicans even in primary elections. In the June 2022 primary 2,628 absentee ballots were returned out of 4944 issued. Of the returned ballots 1829 or 70% were Democrats and 799 or 30% were Republicans. Democrats requested more absentees and returned them at a higher rate than the GOP in this primary. Of all the absentees requested, 2601 were successfully returned and cast (53%). 2152 Absentees were never returned (43%). 146 Absentees were returned by the US mail undeliverable (3%). Only forty-five absentees were returned but ruled invalid (1%). The biggest reason, by far, an absentee was not counted is because it was never returned in the first place.

Despite the failure of the no-excuse absentee ballot amendment last year, absentee balloting remains popular. The 2022 June Primary was the highest requested and returned primary since 2017 with the exception of 2020. In the heights of the COVID pandemic and a combined presidential and congressional primaries Onondaga County saw a huge surge of absentees in the June 2020 primary. This also plays out when we look at the percentage of overall votes cast. The pandemic excuse allowing voters to choose temporary illness is inflating absentee numbers in 2020, 2021, and 2022. However, many voters are also choosing to become permanent absentees such as older voters. While we may not see an explosion of absentees, we could see a steady rise as voters no longer fear their ballots to be rejected.

Affidavit ballots is the last alternate form of voting other than absentee and Early Voting. Affidavit balloting is used by voters who either do not appear on the registration rolls or have what they believe to be incorrect information such as address or party registrations. For the June primary we issued two hundred affidavit ballots during Early Voting and on Election Day at our various poll sites. Democrats accounted 118 affidavits or 59% and the GOP accounted for 82 Affidavits or 41%. Of the Democratic Affidavits 102 were ruled good and sixteen ruled no good. Of the Republican affidavits forty-six were ruled good and thirty-six were ruled no good.

During primaries, the main reason affidavit ballots are ruled no good is voters who believe they are enrolled in a political party attempt to cast a ballot. Of the 52 Affidavit ballots ruled no good, forty-four were voters not enrolled in the party they chose to cast a ballot in. Most of these were voters not enrolled in the GOP attempting to cast ballots in the GOP primary which accounts for the disparity in the two party’s valid vs invalid affidavits. Of the forty-five absentee ballots ruled invalid twenty-six were ballots who did not respond to a cure notice that had deficiencies in filling out their absentees. Another sixteen had missing or untimely postmarks. Only three were ruled invalid during the canvassing process. This is a substantial difference then in previous elections.

Starting in August the #wonkywendesday series will be renamed the #WeeklyWonk and releasing on the weekends. This will allow me more time to get data and branch out with some editorial content on election reform. So, stay tuned for future articles.

Welcome back to #wonkywednesday. Each week I take a deep dive into the registration and election data that makes up our home, Onondaga County. This week I start my 4 week look back at the June 28, 2022 primary. This year we have two primaries because of the disastrous redistricting process in New York. On August 23^rd, 2022, we will have the primaries for Congress and NY Senate. However, we just certified the June primary where Onondaga County held Democratic and Republican primaries for Governor, a Democratic primary for Lt. Governor, and members of the Pompey Town GOP Committee. In other parts of New York Assembly primaries happened as well, but we had none in Onondaga County. This week I will examine #earlyvoting during the June Primary.

Early Voting ran for 9 days June 18-26, 2022, for the June 28^th primary. In a bill that was passed last year more mandated sites and more mandated hours were added to the reform. This meant that every day of Early Voting was a full 8-hour day (weekends were only 5 hours under the old law). It also meant expansion of the minimum number of sites. The voter threshold for minimum number of Early Voting sites meant that Onondaga County must have ten sites for the General election. In May Onondaga County designated their sites and you can see them here. However due to lower voter eligibility and conflicts for the two primaries from host sites we designated only eight of them for use in June and August.

During the June #Early Voting period 2761 voters checked in via the poll pads. Of those that checked in 2739 received ballots and voted on the machines. The other twenty-two voters received affidavit ballots. More voters also received affidavit ballots that did not check in since they were not part of the voter record. We will address affidavits in next week’s #wonkywednesday. Of the 2761 check-ins 2036 were Democrats, 722 were GOP, and three were not enrolled in a party and voted by affidavit. Of the eight sites for #Early Voting Dewitt town Hall was the most popular choice for voters with 790 check-ins at 29% of the overall vote. This was followed by Clay Town Hall (609 22%), OCC Mulroy Hall (361 13%), Armond Magnarelli Center in Syracuse (292 11%), Lysander Town Hall (223 8%), Lafayette Fire Station #1 (190 7%), Syracuse Community Connections (171 6%) and Beauchamp Library (103 4%).

Even though #Early Voting started in 2019, this is only the third primary for the reform as it started with the General election in 2020. Because of the combined primary in 2020 we only have three primaries to compare. We will get a fourth this year though. By all accounts Early Voting grew this year in both Raw Votes and percentage of the overall ballot. However, it is still hard to compare form year to year because of the circumstances of each election. In 2020 though it was a more popular primary in person voting was reduced as so many people chose to absentee reducing the raw numbers and vote share. In 2021 we only had primaries in the City of Syracuse and a few third-party primaries in the suburbs, so the raw number is much reduced. Still if we look at the Percentage of the Overall Vote June 2022 was the best share in a primary for #Early Voting when compared to the overall turnout with 10.71% of voters choosing this option.

We added three new sites for #Early Voting primary this year, OCC Mulroy Hall, Lysander Town Hall, & Beauchamp Library. A fourth site, North Syracuse Community Center will be added for the General Election. Likewise, one of our six original sites, Camillus Town Hall, had scheduling conflicts and we are not using them for June or August. Dewitt Town Hall led in both primaries it was used (2020 & 2022) while Armond Magnarelli was the winner in the City of Syracuse primary in 2021. Of the new sites OCC Mulroy Hall came in third place in 2022 and faired the best, Beauchamp Library unfortunately was the worst site overall. We are starting to see a pattern of usage emerging with top tier sites for primaries being Dewitt and Clay followed by mid-tier sites like Armond Magnarelli, Camillus (when used), and the possible additions of OCC Mulroy Hall and Lysander Town Hall into that group. Syracuse Community Connections Lafayette Fire Station and Beauchamp library look to be lower tired sites. This tracking of usage will allow us to start to adjust staffing levels at individual sites.

With the addition of more sites, we have more areas of the County closer to Early Voting sites than ever. It is no surprise that the closer to a site the higher percentage of your overall vote will choose Early Voting. Lafayette, though a smaller use site, votes the highest of its overall vote early at 17.96%; this is followed by the other Early Voting sites:  Dewitt (15.68%), Clay (12.19%), Onondaga (11.87%), Syracuse (11.27%) and Lysander (9.61%). The one town that outperforms without having an Early Voting site in it is Manlius at 11.94% of its voters choosing to Early Vote, however the Dewitt site is strategically located near the border allowing both towns to Access it. In fact, the three worst towns Elbridge (1.90%, Skaneateles (2.12%), and Spafford (3.17%) are the only three towns that do not border a town with an Early Voting site.

Next week we will look at the absentee ballot states for the June primary. In August, my #Wonky Wednesday blogs will be renamed to the #WeeklyWonk and released on the weekends. This way I can capture more data and have more time to author the articles then the mid-week release allows. Stay tuned.