Early voting turnout for the presidential primary in Onondaga County has been exceptionally low, and elections officials aren’t surprised. So far, less than 1,000 of the county’s nearly 198,000 enrolled Democrat and Republican voters have cast in-person ballots during the past six days. GOP elections commissioner Michele Sardo says they anticipated the low turnout once it was clear President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump were the presumptive nominees.
“We cut down the staff a little over half, so there's not as many inspectors out there," Sardo said. "Equipment: We did cut the equipment down also. But we still have to have two voting machines there by law. That's a cost too. So it's going to cost us probably over $400,000 to run this election for maybe 10,000 voters.”
Sardo also wanted to reduce early voting locations from eight to six in an effort to save more money. But the state mandates a certain number of sites based on the number of voters.
Democratic elections commissioner Dustin Czarny says they were able to make adjustments to Primary Day on Tuesday.
“We have 21 Election Day polling places that we were able to get out of and pair them with closer polling places because they were in schools," Czarny said. "We didn't want to disrupt the school day for an election that wasn't necessarily going to be very active.”
That should help reduce the strain on staff during what GOP commissioner Sardo says is already a very busy time for the board of elections.
“We were in the middle of a village elections and trying to certify that," Sardo said. "We had a hand count with the village elections, on top of our early voting and trying to get ready for this primary. Now petitions come in starting next week, [when] we are trying to certify the presidential primary. So we have a lot on our plate.”
Early voting continues through Saturday at eight locations from 9 am to 6 pm. There is no early voting on Sunday due to Easter. Polls will be open Tuesday from 6 am to 9 pm. More information on early voting locations can be foundhere.
