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.

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 take a bird’s eye view of the Onondaga County Legislature and the race to #Fliptheleg.

The Onondaga County Legislature is a body of 17 members. These members enact legislation and oversee an annual budget of over 1.2 billion dollars.  County Government has the most extensive reach of any local government.  It oversees the county Health system, criminal justice, elections, and virtually every area of our lives.  The most important race this fall is control of the county legislature.

Control of the county legislature has come into focus this year because of the redistricting issue.  Every ten years the US Census is taken and redistricting of the legislative lines begins across the county.  As you can see from the comparison of the 2010 map and the current districts, we have lived with the result of a massive partisan gerrymander that cemented a GOP supermajority for nearly all the last decade, despite the enrollment of our county.  The GOP majority on the redistricting commission jammed through this plan without any bipartisan support even flying back a commission member from Ireland just to take the deciding vote.  The weird shapes of these districts led to funny names like the lobster, the vulture, and others by Syracuse.com.  However, those names hid the true purpose of these shapes, to stack and crack democratic strongholds in an attempt to lead to a permanent supermajority.

We can see here what the 2010 gerrymander has allowed the Onondaga County GOP legislatures to accomplish.  Despite an enrollment advantage in the county, the Democrats have a sizeable minority of member seats in the county legislature.  The GOP has used its redistricting in 2010 combined with incumbency and money advantage to keep a hammer hold on this body.  The 2010 gerrymander was made possible as a law in 2019 to reduce the county legislature from 19 to 17 members allowed a radical redraw and many popular democratic incumbents had announced their intention not to seek another term.  It was a perfect storm that led to the current situation.

The 2010 gerrymander was nothing other than a power grab by the gop power structure.  They used a combination of incumbency and dilution of democratic areas to solidify a majority.  They used their control of the redistricting commission to draw GOP majority districts in OCL 1, 3, 6, 10, 11, 12,13 assuring that in 2010 no Democrat could win in those districts.  Then they drew even districts in OCL 2,4,5, & 14 and used incumbents in those districts to retain control.  They then stacked as many Democratic votes into 8,9,16, &17 as possible to give Democrats those seats but diluting the City of Syracuse and Dewitt, Democratic enrollment strongholds.  This assured them a majority.

On top of that two supposed democratic districts were drawn in such a way to include popular GOP challengers.  Ryan McMahon, the current county executive, was on the redistricting commission and drew a district that just happened to include his home and power base in the valley of Syracuse where he was sitting as 3^rd ward councilor in Syracuse.  After the commission he ran for OCL 15^th, won, and as a freshman was voted chairman of the County Legislature.  A similar decision was made in OCL 7 which happened to include the village of East Syracuse where popular mayor Dan Liedka had announced his intention to seek a county legislative seat.  By drawing these districts in this way, it gave the GOP a legislative super majority of 13-4.

However, things are starting to slip.  The enrollment of this county, specially in the populous suburbs, is starting to overwhelm the 2010 gerrymander.  Democrats have won seats in each of the last two elections. They started as a 4-member super minority and as the county changed, they were able to win the 7^th County Legislative seat when Liedka decided not to seek re-election in 2017 and 15^th county legislative seat in when Ryan McMahon ascended to the County Executive.

Furthermore, demographic changes in OCL 2, 10 & 11 have made those super competitive seats.  There are now open seats in OCL 4 & 14 this year where incumbency will not help as much.  Even in seats with still strong GOP majorities like 1,2, & 12 the momentum of the registration is on our side.  In fact, in every OCL seat since their drawing in 2011 Democrats have gained in partisan advantage, even when factoring in the conservative party members naturally aligning with the GOP.  

Earlier last year, despite their pledges in 2019, the County GOP rejected an independent redistricting commission breaking their promises they made in the 2019 campaigns.  However, that does not mean the issue is lost.  Because of the late transmission of census data and the political calendar, no redistricting work can start or be finished before the new legislature takes seat.  That means if the Democrats gain majority, they can block any map that does not have bi-partisan consensus both on the redistricting commission and in the body itself.

Starting next week, we start looking at the individual 17 county legislative districts and the race to #Fliptheleg in Onondaga County.  The history of their formation and electoral outcomes will be dived into as well as the state of their current enrollments. Democrats are competing in every seat, and you will learn a little about the nature of each race this year.