Category Archives: Interviews

“What we’re looking at now is either the witness is wrong, where a whole sheet can be thrown out, or the individual lines are wrong, and that’s where 90% of the objections are going to come in. And we’re literally going to be going line by line once the objections are made,” Czarny said. https://www.waer.org/news/2025-04-08/election-officials-begin-process-of-verifying-petitions-for-onondaga-county-candidatesContinue reading “Election officials begin process of verifying petitions for Onondaga County candidates – WAER”

“A birth certificate replication was over $100 last time I did it. $80 for a passport. These are real costs for people when deciding whether they can afford it or not. It’s the essence of a poll tax, something we’ve gotten away from,” he explained. https://www.localsyr.com/news/local-news/presidents-trump-executive-order-sparks-controversy-on-voting-in-onondaga-county/

Czarny asked that lawmakers provide more flexibility in the grants they provide and longer time periods for them so election commissioners can do long-term planning to continually upgrade election infrastructure. “We are usually one of the least funded departments in our county governments and a lot of times those funds are evaporate even quicker inContinue reading “Onondaga County Democratic Elections Commissioner urges funding in NY budget hearing – WRVO”

With these statistics in mind, Czarny said New York residents should take advantage of state programs to make voting easier and more accessible in future elections, including by voting by mail and at early voting sites. He also encouraged community members to get involved in the election process more personally, like by serving as pollingContinue reading “Town hall addresses low voter turnout in 2024 presidential election – Daily Orange”

“Every election has a six to eight-month lead up period of activity that you have to do to get to that election and we have 4 or 5 elections a year,” Czarny said. “So, we’re always planning for one as we’re setting up another.” https://www.waer.org/news/2025-01-29/no-time-to-relax-as-county-board-of-elections-prepares-for-next-slate-of-races Subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates

The two elections were “very unusual,” Dustin Czarny, an Onondaga County elections commissioner. https://www.syracuse.com/news/2024/12/with-thousands-of-blank-ballots-2-central-ny-justice-races-decided-by-fewer-than-20-write-in-votes.html?gift=0985174c-43bb-447c-94a1-bcbaf35d2c37 Subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates

“Usually someone wages a write-in campaign and then they become the overwhelming winner,” Czarny said. That didn’t happen in this case, though a few people did write in a handful of names. https://www.syracuse.com/politics/cny/2024/12/election-dilemma-2-onondaga-county-races-need-hand-counts-but-most-are-blank-ballots.html?gift=d3817e66-cb68-4bee-b8ca-604aa597d3a6

Czarny described the Onondaga County elections budget this year as “artificially low” because it did not include funding to operate a second primary. “This year’s budget is going to be blown way out of the water,” he said. Subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all election news and content updates

“There’s probably 10,000 to 15,000 ballots between the two counties to actually count after the election: the late arriving absentees and the affidavits,” Onondaga County Board of Elections Democratic Commissioner Dustin Czarny said. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/politics/2024/11/06/nick-paro-and-chris-ryan-new-york-50th-state-senate-race Subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates