Tompkins Weekly

New York updates voting laws



After a slew of recent changes to New York voting laws, both candidates and voters will have drastically different experiences this year. These updates include changes that voting rights activists have been attempting to pass for years.

Among the many new bills signed into law last month is Assembly Bill A779 which will consolidate both state and federal primaries to one day in June. Locally, Tompkins County Board of Elections Democratic Commissioner Stephen Dewitt said this change would likely have the largest impact to the local BOE office, and possibly the voters. Prior to the change, New York state was the only state to have two separate primary days for state and federal elections.

Federal law in 2008 mandated that states get their mail-in ballots sent out 45 days before elections, but because of the late local primaries in New York, there have been several years when ballots were not sent out in time to meet the mandates of that law.

“They put it in June. So, there really shouldn’t be any reason why – when you arrive to the time that you have to print ballots and get them out to voters for absentees – you shouldn’t have a ballot in hand,” Dewitt said.

Early voting, Dewitt said, will also have a significant impact for local BOE offices. Senate Bill S1102 allows for voting to start 10 days before the general, primary, or run-off primary. This year, early voting will start before the general election on Oct. 26.

So far, Dewitt said the BOE has identified two prospective sites for early voting here in Tompkins County: Ithaca Town Hall, and the fire and rescue building near the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport.

“I think there’s a lot of flexibility, whether a voter wants to vote early or late in the day,” Dewitt said of the new early voting hours. “Hopefully, they’ll take advantage of it.”

Early voting sites will be open on weekends from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday early voting will be open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Tuesday and Thursday from 12 to 8 p.m.

While having one primary day will save the county around $35,000, Dewitt said, the early voting will quickly eat up those savings, and more, in start-up expenses.

“We’re still trying to get our hands around how to administer early voting,” Dewitt said. “We have between now and October to decide that.”

Tompkins County has never used electronic poll books, but that seems to be where the future is taking us. Purchasing the books will be a significant up-front expense for the county (Dewitt estimates around $100,000 at minimum) but they will be used for years to come. Electronic poll books can make the process easier for poll workers by compiling a database of voter signatures that can be distributed to all polling stations, whereas before hard copies of all poll books were used. Of the 30 something other states that use early voting, Dewitt said electronic poll books are what they use.

Recently moved within the state? Good news! Your voter registration will now travel with you across county lines. Whereas before people who moved and didn’t have time to register at their new address (or could not/did not register in time for other reasons) would have to fill out an affidavit ballot in order to vote. With the new law, Assembly Bill A775, voter registration is applicable across the state, not county by county.

“It should help out in a lot of cases, help a voter get their vote counted [on election day],” Dewitt said of the change to traveling registration.

BOE offices across the state are still learning the proper procedures and provisions for the law, but Dewitt said it’s a change that he thinks has the voter in mind.

For young, eager voters, pre-registration for 16 and 17-year-olds has now also been codified. Dewitt said this was already a practice in Tompkins County so the new law will have little local effect. People younger than age 18 have been registered as inactive in Tompkins County before, to be made active when they hit 18. The law isn’t without effect, there is always the possibility that it will encourage young people to become politically active, even when they are too young to vote.

Among the many voting laws passed by both the state senate and assembly recently are two bills that will require further action before becoming law. A bill to allow for same-day registration, and a bill to pass “no excuse” absentee voting, will both need to be codified through a constitutional amendment. “No excuse” absentee voting means that the reasons for requesting an absentee ballot will become much less stringent. Basically, anyone who wants to vote by mail will be able to if the law passes a constitutional amendment.

What voters need to know:

  •  You will have more options of when to vote for this year’s general and next year’s Presidential election. The change of primary means fewer election days this year.

What candidates need to know:

  • Early primary means candidates will need to declare much sooner and can campaign longer. For the two major parties, Democrat and Republican, Feb. 26 is the first day to start circulating petitions. For candidates running on an independent line the first day to start circulating petitions is April 16. Petitions must be filed by May 21.

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