Welcome back to Wonky Wednesday.  Each week I do a deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of our home, Onondaga County.  I hope by looking into this data we can glean that this everchanging county is not monolithic as once thought and competition for Democrats, and all registrations, can be found everywhere.  This week start my #Fliptheleg series looking at each of the 17 Onondaga County Legislative races.  Today I look at Onondaga County Legislative seat #2

In 2011 John Dougherty, a popular County Legislator, was the incumbent in OCL 2.  The GOP majority redistricting commission made small but important alterations to this district.  The desire to make OCL 4 a more GOP leaning district resulted in packing 3 more Clay EDS with large populations into OCL 2.  This made it an even district, but they banked on the popularity of John Dougherty and power of incumbency to keep this district in the GOP column.  OCL 2 was not changed drastically in the redistricting, unlike many other districts that had weird shapes, in fact this shape is one of the more reasonable.

OCL 2 has a strong DEM plurality to it now though. 36% of registered voters are Democrat while 29% are Democrat and 28% non-enrolled.  This Democratic plurality is not coinciding with democratic representation.  The Town of Clay is tremendously expensive to run in overall and the Democratic committee failed to offer candidates many years.  That is starting to change this year.  This district is one of the few wholly inside a town.  This makes it hard to look at regional differences inside the district but is better for the residents of the district.

The Democratic plurality in OCL 2 is a recent phenomenon.  As we saw from my previous Wonky Wednesday:  The Town of Clay that like many large suburban towns, Democrats have had major strides in registration.  Like the Town of Clay, OCL 2 is seeing dramatic registration changes since 2016. Since its drawing in 2011 the GOP has a very modest gain of 167 voters compared to the Democrats gain of 1396. Just behind the Democrats is the growth of the non-enrolled population gaining 1224 voters.  Not only are the non-enrolled poised to overtake the GOP registrations in this district, but the GOP has also lost voters since last election while Democrats and Non-enrolled continue to gain.

Since the redistricting in 2011 the Democrats have failed to mount a challenge until recently.  James Rowley, a former Clay Town Supervisor and CFO for Onondaga County, succeeded John Dougherty in 2017 and Democrats failed to mount a challenge, again. In 2019 Nodesia Hernandez offered the first Democratic challenger in over a decade on this seat.  Rowley won his first challenge but has since broken a pledge to form an independent redistricting commission as well as other controversial votes.  Jay Snyder, a political newcomer, is challenging Rowley this year.

This district when offered challengers does vote for Democratic candidates.  In 2019 the district supported Ryan McMahon for County Executive and Lisa Dell for County Clerk, however Matt Beadnell continued to lag.  The biggest glimmer of hope is from the last election.  Not only did the district support President Joe Biden and NYS Senator John Mannion by wide margins, but it also even performed well in the congressional race.  Dana Balter lost the district to Katko but if we add the 3^rd party votes cast on the WFP line Katko barely won this district.  The key for Snyder and any Democrat running in this district is to offer a contrast and motivate and engage voters who don’t historically turnout in local election years as well as appealing to the growing Non-enrolled voter base.

The Democratic nominee for County Legislature in the 2^nd district is Jay Snyder. A healthcare professional and former educator. He can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JayForCountyLeg and on twitter at  https://twitter.com/JayForCountyLeg Follow his campaign to learn how to help.

Welcome back to Wonky Wednesday.  Each week I do a deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of our home, Onondaga County.  I hope by looking into this data we can glean that this everchanging county is not monolithic as once thought and competition for Democrats, and all registrations, can be found everywhere.  This week start my #Fliptheleg series looking at each of the 17 Onondaga County Legislative races.  Today I look at Onondaga County Legislative seat #1

In 2011 Richard Lesniak, the GOP Floor leader, occupied OCL 1. Once the GOP majority on the redistricting commission announced its redistricting plan, Lesniak decided to not run for re-election and Brian May (R) has served on the legislature ever since. OCL 1 It covers all of the Town of Lysander and a small portion of Clay. OCL 1 was not changed drastically in the redistricting, unlike many other districts that had weird shapes.  Besides extending a small protrusion into western Clay, the district has basically the same borders.

OCL 1 has a strong GOP plurality to it.  36% of registered voters are Republican while 31% are Democrat and 26% non-enrolled.  This domination has led many to believe this is a safe GOP seat. For as long as anyone can remember this seat has been held by the GOP.  Lysander also dominates the district making up 85% of the voter population with 15% in the small portion of Clay that is included in the district.

Democrats are gaining on the GOP in this district.  As we saw from my previous Wonky Wednesday:  The Town of Lysander the town is undergoing changes too, but has traditionally been dominated by the GOP.   The pace of the Democratic growth since 2011 has been about the same pace as the county as well.  On top of that, since the election, there seems to be a definite shift out of the GOP into the non-enrolled category as well as increase enrollments by Democrats.  However, Democrats started in a large deficit in this Leg district, and it will take many more years for demographic gains alone to catch up.

The Lysander portion of the district not only dominates in overall population, but it also dominates the partisan trends of the district as well.  While the Clay portion of the district is more Demographic, their vote is diluted by the overwhelmingly GOP portion of Lysander.  It is unlikely this was done on purpose in the redistricting as Lysander alone does not have enough voters in 2010 to warrant their own district and has traditionally had that same portion of Clay.  That being said it is a dilution for the Democratic votes in the western portion of Clay.

Since Brian May was nominated to replace Richard Lesniak in 2011, he ran unopposed all but one election.  As we will see in upcoming articles, this is all too often the case with some of these districts drawn to be dominated by the GOP.  In 2019 Justin Neal ran on the Democratic and WFP lines to give Brian May his first real challenge.  May won in convincing fashion but has since broken a pledge to form an independent redistricting commission as well as other controversial votes.  Justin Neal is challenging him again in 2021 in hopes of taking advantage of the changing demographics as well as banking on name recognition he gained in the first run.  

Neal does have a glimmer of hope in this district.  While a GOP heavy district it tends to reject the more Trumpian conservative candidates.  As we look at our 5 comparative races there is reason for some cautious optimism.  In 2019 the district supported Ryan McMahon for County Executive and Lisa Dell for County Clerk, however Matt Beadnell lagged.  The biggest glimmer of hope is from the last election.  While Congress was the typical blowout, Senator Mannion came within 1.5% of Angie Renna and President Biden won this district by 4.5%.  Neal will have to appeal to the Presidential voters as well as convince non-enrolled that May is out of touch with the changing ideology of the district.

The Democratic nominee for County Legislature in the 1^st district is Justin Neal, the current Town of Lysander Democratic Chair.  He can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NealforNY and on the web at https://www.nealforny.com/.  Follow his campaign to learn how to help.

Welcome back to Wonky Wednesday.  Each week I do a deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of our home, Onondaga County.  I hope by looking into this data we can glean that this everchanging county is not monolithic as once thought and competition for Democrats, and all registrations, can be found everywhere.  This week I look at the data from the recently certified June 2021 primary.

The June 2021 primary mainly focused on the City of Syracuse. There were Democratic primaries for Mayor (Khalid Bey), Common Councilor At-Large (Rasheada Caldwell & Amir Gethers), Commissioner of Education (Nyatwa Bullock, Karen Cordano, Twiggy Billue), County legislative districts 15 (Bill Kinne) & 16 (Charles Garland), and Common Council District 1 (Jennifer Schultz).  There were Republican primaries for Syracuse Mayor (Janet Burman), as well as Highway superintendent in Skaneateles (Timothy Dobrovsky) & Lysander (Kenneth Svitak) and Town Board in Pompey (James Loomis & Ronald Becker).  Finally, there were small Conservative primaries for Town Justice in Manlius (James Hughes) and Working Family Primaries for Town Justice in Salina (Andy Piraino) and Onondaga County Legislative District 5 (Jana Rogers).  (Winners are in parentheses).

Most voters who took part in the June 2021 primary were Democrats. 6631 Democrats voted in the primary accounting for 79% of the votes cast.  Republicans cast 1671 votes (20%), Conservatives 107 votes (1%) and Working Families Party had just 5 voters go to the polls (>1%).  Curious case about the Working Families primary, late in the petition season we received petitions creating primaries in the OCL5 race and Town Justice in Salina.  These petitions came from recently enrolled WFP members.  No campaigning was ever done as far as I can tell, no Facebook pages or websites, no financial disclosures, nothing.  In fact, in the Town Justice race the candidate who turned in the petition never even bothered to show up and vote in the primary, and the candidate in OCL 5 did show up but there was only one vote for that candidate. Creating this primary cost Onondaga County nearly $2k in election related expenses in inspectors and ballots.

The Electorate for the June Primary largely chose to vote in person on Election Day with 79% of the voters doing so, 11% choosing absentee, and 10% doing Early Voting.  This is only the second primary with Early Voting and extended use of absentees.  In the 2020 combined 1151 voters voted early which was 2.7% of the overall electorate (41,926).  However absentee balloting was down sharply from the 2020 primary which recorded 25,766 votes by absentee or a whopping 61.4% of the vote.  COVID-19 and the crisis it created makes comparing the two primaries nearly impossible.   However, if we look at all four elections we have had since alternative voting methods of Early Voting and expanded absentees have been allowed a pattern is starting to emerge.  More voters are choosing these alternative methods as opposed to Election Day.  I think our real true comparison will be this year’s General Election comparing to 2019 General as we may be in more of a normal situation and can see how these methods have grown over the last two years.

Turnout was a big theme with this election, or at least the lack of it.  It is hard to make comparisons in the town races, but we can compare the last four Mayoral Primary turnouts to get a historical perspective.  Only Democrats held primaries on a regular basis and the turnout of 15.32% in 2021 to choose between Khalid Bey and Michael Greene is the lowest of the last four mayoral primaries.  The GOP did not have mayoral primaries in 2013 & 2017, In fact they did not run a candidate in 2013 at all as the party chair, Tom Dadey, in a rare move, invalidated the only candidate who turned in petitions to run for the Mayoral line, Ian Hunter preferring the line to be unoccupied. However, their last Mayoral primary between Steve Kimatian and Otis Jennings in 2009 generated nearly as much excitement as the Democratic primary that year at 24.12% of voters coming out, this year only 8.93% of the GOP enrolled voters came out to choose between Janet Burman and Thomas Babilon.

After each primary election we do the annual Party Change Roll. Between February 14^th and 7 days after the Primary Election we are prohibited from processing party changes requested by voters.  Those changes are recorded and placed in a virtual “lockbox” and then processed right after certification of the primary.  This year 15,559 voters requested party changes.  Democrats gained 445 voters while losing 358 for a net gain of 87.  Republicans gained 380 voters while losing 498 for a net loss of 118.  The big winner was the non-enrolled population which gained 596 voters while losing 362 voters for a net gain of 234.  Only the Other category (a collection of former recognized parties) and the GOP had a net loss of voters in this party switch. Party switching can still happen, but those party switches are done instantly from now until next February 14, 2022.

The certification of the primary gives us an opportunity to look at new enrollments in Onondaga County since the last election as well. Since the last election we have had 7282 newly enrolled voters in Onondaga County.  Non enrolled voters (2569) just edged out Democrats (2528) in this category with the GOP lagging (1686).  With all this data in we can now get a good snapshot of the electorate heading into the General Election.  Democrats continue to increase their plurality in Onondaga County with 119,139 voters (39%) while the GOP is in 2^nd place with 84,116 voters (27%) and the non-enrolled just behind them also with 81,370 voters (27%).

With the close of this primary election, I must point out how proud I am of the staff at the Onondaga County Board of Elections.  Each election we have been adding new challenges to continue to expand the tools and resources we give to campaigns as well as increase the voter experience.  This election we rolled out the greatest number of Poll Print ballot on demand systems in any election, 38.  This meant that 65% of our 59 had this technology available.  Primaries can cause a lot of confusion for inspectors with multiple ballot styles per Election District and this technology helped us keep any mistakes in mistaken ballots given out.  This also allowed us to provide Election District level primary results for the first time ever as we could program our machines without worrying about creating additional ballot styles.  In a low turnout election, it also saved costs on wasted printed ballots. We were able to provide scans of absentee envelopes to campaigns ahead of our absentee opening, this technology will come in handy next year when we open absentees. By investing in this technology and training we were able to field less inspectors but keep the same level of service for voters.  None of this could have been possible without the hard-working staff of the Onondaga County Board of Elections.  They are heroes every day.