It’s tempting to think that the Onondaga County Board of Elections and others across the state can take it easy after a burst of activity during last year’s presidential election. New York’s election calendar means commissioners and their staffs turn right around and prepare for 2025’s local elections.
The race for Syracuse Mayor will top the ticket in the city, but several common council and all 17 county legislature seats are also up for grabs in November. Democratic elections commissioner Dustin Czarny said there’s also a primary in June, school district elections in May, and village elections in March.
“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.”
Czarny said that includes upgrading and testing equipment, updating voter registration rolls, and checking candidate petitions.
“They run from February 25th to April 3rd and the turn-in time is the last day of March to April 3rd," Czarny said. "That's when we get an idea of where the races are, because I call it April Fool's Day, how we figure out whether they're actually running for office or not.”
For voters, February 14th is the last day to change party enrollment to vote in a primary.
The county board of elections was under significant pressure and criticism last fall when the state had to send in workers to help process a flood of voter registration applications. It cleared up in a few days, but the state board admonished commissioners for a lack of urgency, oversight, and management of staff. Czarny said they learned some lessons, and pulled off a successful election.
“We had virtually no wait times, everybody got a ballot," Czarny said. "And, Onondaga County had a record number of in person votes, as well as a substantial amount of mail votes. There was no delay and the results were not in question.”
Czarny said they’re in a better position this year with four new employees who can tackle any number of tasks as they prepare for this year’s slate of elections.
