Onondaga County voters will be heading to the polls Tuesday for the final day of voting in this year’s local primary races.
Between early voting and absentee ballots this election hasn’t seen a large voter turnout but this isn't surprising. It’s a primary in an odd year for local elections. For Republicans and Conservatives in the county, there’s not much to vote on. Democratic Elections Commissioner for Onondaga County Dustin Czarny says early voting stats reflect the lack of interest.
“This primary is relatively small in nature and the democrats tend to have more eligible voters up," Czarny said. "And we saw that in the early vote about 83 percent of the early voting pool was democrats taking advantage of it.”
More than 1,000 voters cast ballots during the nine days of early voting. Democrats made up 925 of them. This is likely in part due to GOP voters' tendency to favor voting on election day. But Republican Elections Commissioner Michele Sardo says even when voting is finished, she believes overall voter turnout will be low this year.
“It was very low on the Republican side. It was only The Town of Salina and The Town of Pompey. I mean The Town of Salina has 6,200 plus voters that were eligible and Pompey had 2,100 plus that were eligible. But 132 showed up in Salina and 21 showed up in Pompey. So a few people took advantage of it but there should have been a lot more."
The majority of this year’s primaries are for democrats in the City of Syracuse. Czarny says city voters should be aware of some important changes on the final day of voting.
“Please remember if you’re going to vote on Tuesday that some of your polling places may have changed, especially inside the city of Syracuse," Czarny said. "So check your polling place at onvote.net those changes were done because of redistricting and some unavoidable polling place closures,” said Czarny.
Polls will be open Tuesday from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.