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.