Only 1% showed up to vote early

AMNY 

Just 44,611 New Yorkers took advantage of the nine-day early voting period for the June 27 primary elections for City Council, Queens and Bronx district attorney and several judgeships, according to unofficial tallies from the city Board of Elections (BOE).

That means only about 1.3% of the city’s roughly 3.6 million registered Democratic and Republican voters checked-in at over 100 early voting sites spread across the city over the period.

The sad showing among New Yorkers voting early could be due to this being an off-year election, with no higher ticket races for citywide, statewide or national office on the ballot and the City Council having just run for reelection two years ago. The short-turnaround for reelecting all 51 council members, which usually takes place every four years, is a result of last year’s redistricting, where the council map was redrawn in accordance with the biennial U.S Census.

Further adding to the low early voting turnout, this year saw only a handful of competitive races across the four of the five boroughs — with no primaries at all in Staten Island.

Ben Weinberg, director of public policy at the good government group Citizens Union, said about two-thirds of the City Council races this year are uncontested, so the low turnout is “unsurprising.”

“Many New Yorkers don’t even have anything on their ballots, or they might only have stuff like judicial delegates and positions that usually people are not really familiar with,” Weinberg said.

 

 

Get out the vote early against Hochul

 

Apathy leads New York primaries

AMNY 

New Yorkers trickled in to polling stations over the weekend to cast their ballots for the first of two primary elections this summer.

Early voting started on Saturday, June 18 for state political offices, such as the governor, lieutenant governor, state assembly members, judges, and party positions.

For the first day, only 10,035 people cast their ballots in the Five Boroughs, according to the city’s Board of Elections, down from 16,867 on the first day of early voting during last year’s primaries for mayor and other city positions.

 June Primary Election – Day 1
New York – 3,400
Bronx – 1,364
Brooklyn – 2,578
Queens – 2,122
Staten Island – 571
Total Number of Early Voting Check-Ins 10,035
*Unofficial as of Close of Polls

Thanks to the state’s redistricting, voters can cast their ballots in two primaries this summer, with another vote coming up on Aug. 23 for the U.S. House of Representatives and the state Senate.

“It’s confusing,” said Manhattanite Caroline Miller after voting at a polling station inside a senior center in Two Bridges. “It seems to be disruptive.” 

 NY Daily News

Early voting in the Big Apple will run through Sunday. Polling places will be shuttered the following Monday and will reopen at about 1,200 sites throughout the city on Tuesday, which is the final day to cast ballots in person.

The city’s Board of Elections provides information about early voting, but Ken Sherrill, professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College, suggested that hasn’t done the trick.

He said low turnout in the city over the weekend shows there’s little to no voter education happening when it comes to early voting.

“The television campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor don’t mention when primary day is, or when early voting begins,” he said. “In other words, there is absolutely no voter education going on by any of the candidates or political parties — or virtually none.”

Nobody's doing it

 

 

NY Post 

The fiercely competitive primary races for mayor are not galvanizing voters to rush early to the polls, according to the city Board of Elections.

Voters have the option to cast ballots during nine days of early voting offered at more than 100 polling sites ahead of next Tuesday’s primary election.

Through the first four days of early voting, more than 64,200 voters cast ballots in the first citywide ranked choice primary election.

There are more than 3.6 million active registered Democrats and 500,000 Republicans eligible to vote in the primary races for mayor and other offices — or more than 4.1 million voters combined.

That means less than 2 percent of eligible primary voters have cast ballots thus far.