Op-Ed: Improving the Voting experience in New York

As citizens of the United States, voting is our duty and the bedrock of our democracy. As a state legislator, I’ve been proud to work with my colleagues in Albany to improve the voting experience here in New York to ensure that voting is accessible for the people of our state. In recent years, we have worked to replicate processes such as early voting and mail-in voting, which are very popular in other states and have proven to be just as popular here in New York.

The pandemic necessitated changes to our voting practices to ensure that voters could safely cast ballots, and even with the worst of the pandemic in the rearview mirror, voters have continued to embrace the convenience and ease of mail-in balloting. The state of Oregon has had a mail-in balloting system since the 2000 election, and Oregon voters continually offer high marks for their system of voting. Here in New York, our early-voting system has been broadly popular across the state, especially here in Erie County. To expand upon the success of early voting, the governor recently signed a law that will allow for mail-in voting to be conducted during the early-voting period. We have long had absentee voting, and this new system will give voters two ways to cast their ballot early, either in person or by mail. It’s a smart way to build upon our effective and very popular early-voting system.

Another piece of legislation currently on the governor’s desk would help boost turnout for local elections. In our current system, we often see quite a bit of voter fatigue, leading to a drop-off in voter turnout during odd-year elections. Voter turnout has been pretty strong recently during presidential elections and mid-term congressional and gubernatorial elections, but those odd-year elections have seen significant drops in voter turnout. For example, voter turnout for the 2020 presidential election in Amherst was around 68,000. The 2021 local election turnout in Amherst was about 29,000. And the turnout for the 2022 gubernatorial election in Amherst was about 51,000.

As you can see, turnout improves significantly during the even-numbered years, and that is completely understandable. We are all paying more attention during the even-numbered years, and that leads to more voter participation. I want to have our local elections benefit from that increased turnout because our democracy is always stronger when more people are participating. The bill currently before the governor would move local elections to even-numbered years to help boost turnout. I believe it would be a great way to make the voting experience easier for voters here in New York and increase turnout in our local elections. Never forget that every election matters, from your local town council races all the way up to president of the United States.

Election Day is just around the corner, and early voting begins Saturday, Oct. 28. Be sure to make your voice heard and cast your ballot this year. You can check out elections.erie.gov for more details about early voting, polling places and times.