Dustin Czarny, the Democratic election commissioner in Onondaga County, said he was surprised that Katko withdrew before the district maps were finalized. Knowing that Katko is out of the picture might influence how the Democratic-controlled state legislature will set the boundaries.
“It gives the Democrats a tactical advantage,’’ he said.
Primary petition gathering is scheduled for March 1 through April 7 this year, Czarny said. The legislature is expected to approve new congressional maps before then.
Today I speak with Kate Doran of the League Of Women Voters of NYS. We talk about the organizations history and hopes for the legislative session this year. We also discuss BOE reform and election litigation passed by the Senate on the first day. Enjoy.
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Welcome back to #wonkywednesday! Each week I dive into the stats and registration and election data that makes up the electoral landscape of Onondaga County. I continue to look back at the November General Election as we await new registration and redistricting data that will come in February. This week in will look at the polarization of voting methods that have happened over the last 3 years.
Up until 2019 New York was largely an in-person voting state on Election Day. New York did not have early voting and a rather strict excused based system for absentee. This meant that well over 90% of the vote for any election was on Election Day. Absentee voting though showed signs in the last few years of increasing. In 2016 and 2018, two very high turnout years, we saw a decent increase of absentee voting. As New Yorkers saw other states’ voters able to cast ballots early many New Yorkers chose to vote by absentee claiming permanent and temporary illness.
This all changed in 2019 when Early Voting was adopted by the New York state legislature. For the 2019 General Election was the first time voters in New York could choose to vote on a day other than Election Day. We saw an immediate polarization in 2019 when it came to this reform. In Onondaga County Democrats accounted for the overwhelming plurality of Early Votes. Republicans remained skeptical of this reform and stayed largely in person. This polarization got worse in 2020 and 2021 as Democrats made up even larger shares of the growing Early Vote contingent. Absentees remained pretty evenly used in 2019 however that changed in 2020 when the COVID-91 pandemic made the use of mail in ballots easier than ever. National rhetoric led to under usage of absentee ballots by the GOP both in 2020 and 2021 from what was generally equally used method of voting prior to 2020.
Democrats have been the biggest adopter of Early Voting and increased uses of absentees. Their increase in percentages and raw numbers for early voting from 2019 to 2021 elections, both local years, has decreased their influence on Election Day. 2020 is an abnormal year with nearly 605 of Democrats choosing to vote in options other than Election Day. With COVID raging and no vaccine it remains to be seen whether 2020 is just an anomaly or something we may see more of in higher turnout elections.
It may surprise some to see the GOP also grew its share and raw numbers of Early Voting and absentees from 2019 to 2021. Their vote share for Election Day dripped 2% points as some voters are starting to resist the national rhetoric. However they still largely outnumber Democrats in desire to vote on Election Day. Over 61% of their voters in the presidential year and over 87% in 2021 chose Election Day as their method. This compares to 40.55% for Democrats in 2020 and 78.55% in 2021.
Non enrolled voters not surprisingly land in the middle of the two parties. The fluctuations in turnout with non-enrolled voters seem to affect their voting method choice which is not all that surprising. Though not enrolled in a party most studies show non-enrolled still have ideological leans. The N/E aligned with Democrats may be adopting their voting method preferences where the ne/s aligned with GOP. The n/e voting method breakdowns tend to reflect the overall breakdowns more than either party.
The increased usage of alternative voting methods as well as the increasing polarization of the political party’s feelings towards those methods have created whiplash when reporting results. This phenomenon is what I call the Blue Blip-Red Mirage-Blue shift. Early Voting dominated by Democratic voters were always the first results reported at 9pm on Election Night. This would give Democrats in virtually every race a blip of hope as an initial lead would show up on Election Night. As results would trickle in from the various Election Day polling places the more GOP friendly Election Day electorate would overcome those leads. In 2020 this shift was so dramatic because the GOP had a significant advantage on Election Day. It even led to Syracuse.com jumping the gun calling CNY a Blue Mirage. Absentee ballots though in 2020 and 2021 were heavily polarized and led to many come from behind victories for Democratic candidates weeks after Election Day when those ballots were counted.
This may now be a thing in the past or at least drastically changed. In 2022 for the first time Absentee ballot totals will be part of the Election night counts. This means as reporting starts Early Voting and Absentee totals will start to appear. So the Blue Blip at the beginning of the night may be larger than before. Election Night results will come in as the night goes on and when voters go to bed we should have reporting of well over 95% of the ballots cast. This will likely allow more races to be called on Election Night and give confidence to voters to choose whatever voting method they want. We will still have affidavit and absentee ballots received in the 48 hour period before Election Day to count after the election but that universe will be small and not as polarized meaning only the closest of races can flip.
That is it for this week. Next week I will continue looking back at the November election. I will look at who won the individual races in Onondaga County and whether Democrats or Republicans gained significantly in the local electoral landscape.
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In today’s Zoom with Czarny I sit down with Perry Grossman of NYCLU. We talk NY Voting Rights Act and how it might change our electoral landscape. We also chat about the first day bills passed by NY Senate yesterday, Finally we touch on the Onondaga County redistricting process. Enjoy.
Today I talk to Dave Harding one of my part time mobile custodians at the Onondaga County Board of Elections. We talk abotu his job and what it entails as well as some of the challenges he has faced over the last few years. Check it out.
From time to time I will do a site update letting you know my progress in building this website. I launched site officially on January 2, 2022, but I started actually working on it on December 24, 2021. The idea for this site was to catalog not only be a home for my current podcasts, writings, and media appearances, but also a repository for the past. I had no idea how much that would entail.
As of right now I have 547 different items now on this website. 3 of those posts are site update posts, including this one. The rest break down into three main categories:
All of my Wonky Wednesday articles from my Tumblr blog & Zoom with Czarny podcasts are completely uploaded to the website.
It was in May of 2020 where I was religious about adding Facebook videos to my youtube channel but I did have a smattering of videos dating back to 2016 including my first commissioner in a cars, they are all up on the website
My progress in scrolling through my Facebook page now dates back to November 1, 2019. So Editorials, Features, Interviews, Testimony, & Commissioner in a Car episodes from before then are limited on the website. My official facebook page started in September 1, 2018. I am not sure how much stuff from before that date I will be able to capture from my personal facebook postings. When I get to that point though I will cross that bridge.
My hope is to continue to make progress on the old stuff as I add new content. I found a way to eliminate notifications from going to subscribers when I post old stuff but it involves taking the site off line, so I will try and do it a month at a time. It is interesting to revisit old moments in time.
Most recently going through all of 2020 and the fear and uncertainty of that time period was an experience to remember. As scary as the current wave of the pandemic is it pales in comparison to March 2020 and the months afterward. Thank god we have the vaccine now and a path out of this pandemic. That along with mitigation efforts like masking in public indoor spaces and therapeutic options we can learn to live with COVID as an endemic measure.
Elections changed in 2020 forever. We moved, cancelled, and rescheduled the Presidential primaries. We rescheduled and cancelled the special elections for SD 50. We mailed absentee ballot applications to every voter for the primary and developed online applications for the general election. We implemented absentee ballot cures and tracking systems. We learned how to hold in person voting with masks and sanitizing of equipment. We dealt with record participation and COVID outbreaks amongst BOE staffs. We rose to the challenge, even when we failed.
The importance of vote by mail in the pandemic allowed our Democracy function while keeping voters safe. The failure no fault absentee balloting proposition on the 2021 ballot is a blow to Vote by mail, but not the end. Already it looks as if New York may extend the pandemic excuse for 2021. Also the changes in how we canvass absentee ballots in 2022 will eliminate the ridiculous challenges we saw in 2020 that tried to prevent valid ballots from counting.
Expanded in person options with Early Voting will become a priority in 2022 mainly due to the long lines we saw in 2020. With New York being a mainly in person voting state until 2025 at least expanding Early Voting becomes a major priority. It took awhile but in 2022 Onondaga County will have 10 Early voting sites instead of 6 and sites will expand throughout New York State. Weekends will have 8 hour shifts instead of 5. We are still behind many other states but we are improving.
Thank you once again to all of those who have supported me throughout the years as well as the staff of the Onondaga County Board of Elections. I hope you find this new venture of mine informative. As always if you are new to the site you can subscribe below. I will never ask for outside money or have advertisements on this site. This is part of my voter outreach and supported 100 percent by my own efforts and money.
Veterans Organize CNY invited me to make some remarks on the one year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection at the capitol. I talked not just about that day but how election misinformation for 20 years led to that day and how it is ongoing since.
Please see the entire testimony and event here:
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One of the purposes of this website was to catalog current future and past interviews as well as my testimony and writing. When I launched on Sunday I was able to transfer all of my Tumblr blog posts which had #wonkywednesday articles going back to August of 2020. I was also able to catalog all of my commissioner in a car and Zoom with Czarny posts as well as feature and interviews going back to August 2020 before launch.
I have some older commissioner in a cars from 2016 in already from my Youtube channel and occasionally I will be trying to add older media, Zoom with Czarny’s going back May of 2020 as well as all old interview and feature appearances and interviews going back to the start of my work as Elections Commissioner in January 2018 when I started my public Facebook page and I may even try and find older articles going back to my nomination of Elections Commissioner in September 2012.
It has come to my attention though when I post older posts many of my subscribers get email notifications. Recently I posted all of my media mentions from July 2020 and it caused a few emails to go out. I am working with WordPress on some workarounds to fix this however you may want to switch to Daily delivery of emails instead of immediate. Most of the time I imagine this website will only post one new blog a day however, n the future, specially around busy elections, there may be multiple interview and feature appearances causing four or five different blog posts.
To change your subscription delivery at the bottom of an email notification you should see a manage subscription button.
Click on the manage subscription button and it should take you to the Subscription Management page where you can change to “Daily” delivery instead of immediate.
By switching to daily delivery it will keep you from getting multiple emails a day when I post older posts or even in busier times when there may be multiple news articles a day.
Thanks for subscribing to dustinczarny.com. I hope that you stay involved and find this voter education project of mine resourceful in the new year.
-Dustin
EDIT: It does look like I have figured out how to add past posts without notifications going to the subscribers. I have to actually take the site to private while adding these posts, then go back and take the site public again after. I added all of June 2020 posts and now have every episode of Zoom With Czarny (which started May 22, 2020) on the website. I will continue to add to the site for past posts using this method to keep you from getting emails, though I still think it is best to switch to daily updates.
Welcome back to #wonkywednesday. Every week I take a write a column dedicated to election and registration data in Onondaga County and New York State. Election Day voting has changed dramatically over the last two years with the addition of Early Voting giving voters another option starting in 2019. Furthermore, the pandemic has increased voters’ reliance on mail-in balloting. Election Day voting is still the preferred method of most voters. This week I investigate the data behind Onondaga County’s Election Day voters.
For the 2021 General Election, Election Day vote accounted for over 83% of the overall vote, by far the most popular option. Early Voting only accounted for 10% of the vote and Absentee voting 6% of the vote. Of the 78,564 votes cast on Election Day, Democrats and Republicans nearly tied in turnout consisting of 37% of the electorate each. Democrats make up 38% of the electorate of Onondaga County so they slightly underperformed. The GOP slightly makes up over 27% of the electorate of the county so they significantly over performed on Election Day. Once again, the blank or non-enrolled underperformed as they account for 27% of the electorate but only 20% of the Election Day vote.
The reforms of 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly decreased the election day portions. It is notable that during the presidential election only 51% of the electorate voted on Election Day, however in a time before vaccines amid a pandemic and in a high turnout election it is not the best comparison. The best comparison remains to 2019 and we do see a drop off in Election Day participation. The overall raw numbers drop from 95,352 in 2019 to 78,564 in 2021 is mostly due to a lower turnout year in 2021. The percentage of voters choosing Election Day though is lower as well. A drop of over 5% means voters are getting use to the alternative voting methods in Early and increase use of absentees. This is likely to continue to drop over time.
Eight of the top ten polling places throughout Onondaga County are located outside the City of Syracuse. Suburban sites usually have more parking and can accommodate more people than city sites that must account for more pedestrian traffic. The two city sites, Bellevue Heights and American Valley Legion are results of poll site consolidations due to COVID restrictions on senior homes and the wish to get out of some public schools. When we look at evaluating polling sites and whether to add more sites it may be to lessen the burdens on these large sites. All of these sites have extra inspectors and ballot on demand printers to help accommodate the crowds.
Polls are open between 6am and 9pm on Election Day, the longest day in the United States. This graph shows the number of votes cast in the previous hour on Election Day. Though polls close at 9pm there are a small number of votes cast after 9pm since voters in line at close of polls are allowed to check-in and cast ballots. This data is new and made possible by our Knowink Poll Pads poll books which were implement in the 2019 General Election. This year we saw a steady increase of voters throughout the morning Cresting after work and then falling dramatically. Last year we saw a dramatically different pattern with long lines in the morning and falling all day long. Unfortunately, our 2019 data was never saved for the hourly performance, so we are unable to make that comparison. Still the wildly changing patterns make it difficult to determine proper staffing levels on a shift basis and that is why we rely on all day inspectors.
That is it for this week. Next week on #wonkywednesday I will look at the polarization of voting methods over the last three years. The much-discussed Red Mirage vs Blue shift that we have seen as races change after Election night and the reasons why that is.
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Dustin M. Czarny 