Elections Professional and Activist
“We’re used to having to think on our feet now in New York,” Dustin Czarny, a Democratic election commissioner in Syracuse-based Onondaga County, told Insider. “I have to be honest: This year is the worst.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/special-elections-congress-vote-alaska-gerontocracy-2022-9
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 start my look back at the August 23rd Congressional and State Senate Primary with a breakdown of Absentee Voting.
Absentee Voting has seen an increase in usage over the last few years as the pandemic made in-person voting problematic for segments of the voting population. In the June 2020 primary at the height of the pandemic we saw almost 70% of ballots cast via absentee. However, as vaccines have started to normalize left, we have seen a receding usage. The failure of the no-fault absentee constitutional amendment last year makes it likely that we will see pre-pandemic usage in the future. One major change is different this year. We no longer wait weeks to count absentees for weeks after Election Day opening them up to needless challenges. This is resulting in less ballots that are actually returned being ruled invalid.
For the August 2022 Primary we had congressional primaries countywide for Democrats and GOP and a conservative party primary for the #SD48. For the August 23, 2022, primary we issued 5,824 absentee ballots. 3,044 (50%) ballots were returned and successfully cast. 2755 (46%) were not returned by the voters. 222 (4%) were returned as undeliverable meaning the address on file was no longer correct. This usually happens when a permanent absentee voter moves without updating their address. Only 53 (1%) ballots were ruled invalid after being returned. Of the 3069 Returned ballots, 2133 (69%) were by Democratic voters, 916 30% were by GOP voters, and 20 (1%) by conservative voters.
In terms of raw absentees being sent out the August 23rd primary was one of the highest absentee counts since 2017 (we do not have data readily available before then for primary absentees). It was only eclipsed by the pandemic year of 2020. It should be noted the primaries for 2017, 2019, and 2021 were generally city-only primaries and behave differently then the county wide primaries in 2018, 2020, and 2022. What we see from the data is despite the waning of the pandemic, the absentee usage is showing signs of continuing to grow. Significantly both of 2022’s split primaries were consistently just over 9% of the votes cast where the 2018 pre pandemic primaries were around 6.5%. When the pandemic excuse lapses this year, we will see if that usage continues.
We also saw an increase in affidavit usage from the June primary with 241 voters using affidavits during Early Voting and Election Day. This is up from two hundred in the June Primary and correlates to the slightly higher turnout we saw in August. 169 Democrats filled out Affidavit ballots, 72 Republican voters. Of the returned affidavits Democrats only had thirty-three ballots rejected, the GOP 27 ballots were rejected. This meant that 75.1% of the affidavit ballots were ruled valid and counted with the final results.
Of the Affidavit ballots rejected the most common reason (47) were because the voter was not enrolled in the party in which they wished to cast a ballot. This is always the most common reason for rejection in a primary. Six affidavit voters had voted by absentee, and we received the absentee ballot, so their affidavit did not count, another six voted at the wrong polling place. Three affidavit voters were not registered to vote at all. We did have fifty-three absentee ballots that were returned but not counted. OF those the most common (25) were ballots returned with a postmark date later then election day. Another twenty-four ballots required a cure for a variety of reasons and did not return the cure paperwork. Another four ballots were ruled invalid during opening with marks or other issues on the ballot itself. No voters returned absentees after voting in person and no inspectors who were issued special ballots did not work ruling their ballot invalid.
That does it for this edition of the #weeklyWonk. Next week I will continue my look at the August 23rd Primary by diving into the Election Day Voting performance. We will continue looking back at the extra primary the rest of September before we resume the look at voter registrations for the General Election Senate Seats #50 & #48 as well as the towns of Manlius, Onondaga, and Pompey. Check back each week.
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This week I sit down with Ryan Suser. He is running to fill a vacancy on the Onondaga Town Board. We talk about running for a local seat in a national year. Enjoy. You can follow his campaign with the Onondaga Town Democrats here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064703614923
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I talk mostly about the long road to getting Citizen led maps passed by the Syracuse Common Council and the City of Syracuse Redistricting Commission. You can view the new maps here: https://linktr.ee/syredistricting
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Onondaga County Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny thinks other governments could follow suit.
“I think this is a win for citizen-led redistricting, and I think people across the state are going to be looking at this.”
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 start my look back at the August 23rd Congressional and State Senate Primary with a breakdown of #EarlyVoting.
#EarlyVoting is the newest form of voting in New York State having been adopted in 2019. However, this is only the fourth primary election with #EarlyVoting as it went into effect with the general election in November 2019. Though we had four primary elections in Onondaga County with #EarlyVoting, this year’s back-to-back June & August primaries are the only ones with county wide primaries for both GOP and Democratic candidates. The 2020 combined Presidential and local primaries in Onondaga County were only for Democratic candidate’s county wide with the GOP only having a small Assembly primary. The 2021 Primary had both Democratic and GOP candidates, but it was only the City of Syracuse. However, we now have four elections to see the trend for #earlyVoting and how primary voters react to this reform.
For the August 2023 Primary we had 4154 #EarlyVoters. Of the overall #EarlyVoting pool we see that 75% of those who participated were Democratic (3115), 24% were GOP (1008), and the Conservatives had 1% of the electorate (31). Onondaga County deployed eight #EarlyVoting locations for the August primary, the same as the June one. Once again Dewitt Town Hall (1275) was the largest #EarlyVoting location followed by Clay Town Hall (862. This order has been the same for seven of the eight elections, both primary and general elections since the start of Early Voting. OCC Mulroy Hall (579) continued its third-place ranking and the best “new “#early Voting spot. Armond Magnarelli (4040) and Lysander Town Hall (340) rounds out the midsize EV spots. The bottom three remain Lafayette Fire Station (254), Syracuse Community Connections (244) And Beauchamp Library (198).
This is the fourth primary with #earlyVoting as an option and we are seeing a definitive growth in use. The August 23rd Primary was the best performance for #EarlyVoting in a primary yet. With 4154 total voters it was a over a 50% increase from June 2022 primary (2761). It is not just about raw votes either. The August Primary #EarlyVote was 12.3% of the voter turnout. This was nearly a 15% increase from June 2022 Primary (10.71%). This makes the August 23rd Primary the best performance for #earlyVoting in a primary in Onondaga County.
If we look at Early Voting by site, we see that Dewitt and Clay continued their traditional top performance in the August 2022 primary. Though I have included the 2020 and 2021 data here, I find it more enlightening to see where there may be growths between June and August. These two primaries provide the best comparison since the same electorate. When looking at the percentage of the electorate Dewitt Town Hall made the most gain in Early voting increasing its share of the electorate by 1.92%. However, Beauchamp Library, though the least in raw votes in both elections, showed a significant growth in the electorate at +.97%. OCC Mulroy Hall also increased its vote share at .79%. The biggest loser in vote share was Clay Town Hall at -1.43%, Armond Magnarelli at -.91% and Lafayette Fire Station -.81%. Since the substantial changes don’t seem to be close to each other geographically the changes are more likely a result in the slight increase in turnout in the August primary coming from different areas of the county than in June.
The August Primary once again continues the pattern that the City of Syracuse and towns that host #EarlyVoting centers show a higher percentage of use of these facilities. Raw Vote totals still tend to follow overall population with notable exceptions. Syracuse, Clay, and Manlius are the top performers but Dewitt well overperforms higher population towns like Salina, Cicero, & Lysander. The percentage of Turnout really brings this to light as Dewitt has the highest percentage of #EarlyVotes of their eligible population. Lafayette though is second as the Town of Lafayette voters used their EV center at the second highest rate. Other towns with EV sites like Clay, Lysander, Onondaga, and the City of Syracuse outperformed towns that do not have EV sites. The exception of this rule continues to be the Town of Manlius, however the location of Dewitt Town Hall on the border of Manlius and Dewitt gives those citizens a remarkably close EV option they are definitely taking advantage of.
I am introducing a new way of tracking #EarlyVoting with this #WeeklyWonk. With four primaries under our belt, we can now track EV performance by individual parties as well. Critics of #EarlyVoting point to it servicing a small percentage of voters. They are not wrong, especially with primaries. However, they are not right either. They leave out that primaries themselves only service 10-15% of all voters and that #EarlyVoting outnumbers absentee voting as a voter option. They also conveniently forget to point out that by a metric, #earlyvotingisgrowing. 2.69% of registered Democrats used #EarlyVotingbut it was 15.26% of the overall voter turnout. This is up from June (1.77/12.22) and the highest rate yet. The same is true of #EarlyVoting among GOP though it is less in numbers and percentage than Democrats. The August Primary showed 1.23% of enrolled GOP voters and 7.7% of the overall turnout up from June (.89%/5.97%) and another record. We see increased GOP voters are splitting with their party rhetoric and choosing #EarlyVoting as well.
That does it for this edition of the #weeklyWonk. Next week I will continue my look at the August 23rd Primary by diving into the Absentee Voting performance. We will continue looking back at the extra primary the rest of September before we resume the look at voter registrations for the General Election Senate Seats #50 & #48 as well as the towns of Manlius, Onondaga, and Pompey. Check back each week.
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“Syracuse has a chance to make history Monday. The Syracuse Common Council is scheduled to vote on new council districts drawn by a citizen-led, independent commission. Communities around the country are watching this experiment in democracy.”
This redistricting process in Syracuse is a model for how redistricting should be done. I am posting this because I believe my subscribers should know about this historic process happening in our backyard.
In this episode of Central Current Radio, Host Rick Wright and Editor-in-Chief Julie McMahon talk local politics and the upcoming midterm elections with longtime Onondaga County Democratic Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny. For the latest coverage from the Central Current team go to centralcurrent.org/.
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This week I sit down with Mark Spadafore, President of the Greater Syracuse Labor Council and Upstate Political Director for 1199 SEIU. We talk about the state of CNY and American labor. We also touch on the renaissance of the labor movement. Finally we talk politics about this fall’s elections. Enjoy.
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In the fifth grade I had been diagnosed with a bone infection. It came on suddenly and within days I was unable to walk. I spent 6 weeks in the hospital and another 6 weeks at home as I recovered from this near-death infection. My hospital stay started in December of 1983. As I entered the hospital in constant pain and fighting for my life my mother was by my side. She was though a single parent with another child at home. Once I was out of danger and recovering, she had to go back to work and take care of my brother. For a young man spending this much time alone in a hospital I looked for something, anything to latch onto. And I found the Washington Redskins.
I was just starting to get into football as a sport but had not yet picked a team. My father was not a New York Native, so I had not been indoctrinated into a local team. One Sunday the Washington Redskins were playing the Detroit Lions in a playoff game. I tuned in thinking maybe I would root for Detroit as my father was from Michigan. During the absolute shellacking, the Lions were taking I decided that I would root for Washington the rest of the playoffs. It did not hurt that there was a prominent player on the team named Dave Butz and my 11-year-old self-found that funny as hell.
As I continued to get healthy, Washington continued to win. They went on to win the Superbowl that year and I was a fan for life after that. Or so I thought.
For the next almost 40 years I stuck with Washington through thick and thin. And yes, there was a good deal of thin. I organized my life around games. When I moved back to Syracuse in 1995, I started watching games at Tully’s on Erie Blvd every week. I met a group of friends there, also Washington fans, and looked forward to each Sunday. I met other friends online at various forums throughout the web. I even for two years wrote a weekly blog about my beloved football team.
My wife arranged for me to go to my first live game, ironically, in Buffalo before we were married and suffered through a game on our honeymoon in 2004. Almost every year we made a pilgrimage down to Fed Ex stadium. My one and only trip to the Football Hall of Fame was when Art Monk was finally inducted. I cheered when Joe Gibbs came back as Head Coach and had my heart break when he could not regain his former glory. I looked on in despair as my favorite college player Donovan McNabb could not achieve greatness in the Burgundy and Gold. I instructed my children to learn the fight song proudly and would make them sing it after touchdowns. I loved being a fan of this team for an exceptionally long time.
In 2018 tings really started to change for me. The weight of the Snyder era had fallen heavy on my heart. It was not just about the lack of football success or coaching carousel, though that was a part of it. It was about the way a once proud franchise turned from a fan driven entity to a profit at all costs machines. Then the cheerleader scandal was brought to light where young women were taken advantage of and abused under the direction of this corrupt ownership. Sexual harassment allegations against Snyder have still not been settled and he is still allowed to be an owner in this league. The name change, something I came to accept as an inevitably, was managed almost as a cover up for other scandals instead of the serious decision it should have been. I no longer enjoyed watching this team and was ashamed to wear their merchandise. Even through all of that I tried to hang on as a fan and hope for better days.
Like most things though, Donald Trump and the election of 2016 factored in. The fan group that I had been a part of for nearly 20 years started to splinter and fight. Before this we had survived every major election even though our ideologies were as diverse as America. Late in 2017 we stopped getting together to watch games. There was never any big argument, we just…stopped. We could not separate politics and football and it was easier to go our separate ways. I was not really interested in watching the team anymore and in 2019 I stopped reserving time in my schedule to watch the games. When they announced the bland new name of the Commandeers, I felt nothing but shame for a once proud franchise.
Finally, this summer came the final straw. The team allowing their defensive coordinator to make light of the insurrection, which took place in their supposed home of DC, was a bridge too far for me. The response, as often was the case with the Dan Snyder scandals, came too late and it was too light for me to pretend any longer. I was no longer a fan of the Washington football team and could no longer hope that I could be. They had taken the joy out of a sport I loved from the time I was 11 years old in a hospital bed fighting for my life. So, I renounced my fandom.
I was not sure whether or not I would try to even be a football fan anymore. Over the last few years another longtime fandom took prevalence in my little idle time, the Boston Celtics and NBA basketball (that is a story for another day). I did not want to just jump to a new team right away and to be honest the sport of football and the injuries it caused weighed on parts of my conscious, and still do.
But today I have decided. I want football to be back in my life. I want to try and enjoy this game again. For me that means rooting on a team, one team, and being part of the community. So, as I thought about which team I wanted to root for, I decided I should root for a local team for once. A New York team that I could go to games again if the opportunity arose. I wanted a team that I could perhaps find community of sport in again with local fans that I could cheer with and commiserate with. I know no team and no ownership will be perfect. But I needed a fresh start if I were to love this game again. And for a fresh start, I needed a new team.
I decided that I could only support the Buffalo Bills. They are the only team that actually plays in New York. It is the closest team to my current location. I also figured that as a New York Taxpayer I am funding their stadium so that makes me a part owner. I might as well get dividends out of it. I know that some will believe that I am only joining them on their upswing, but I hope my history of sticking through the difficulties of the Washington football team will show I am not a fair-weather fan. I will be with you Bills Mafia through thick and thin.
Here is to a new beginning and loving football again. Go Bills.
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