One of the big changes in how New York runs\nits elections is a measure to allow \u201cearly voting.\u201d Early voting allows for people to cast their\nballots in advance of Election Day. And\nearly voting has been tested across the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When New York acted it became the 39th<\/sup>\njurisdiction to do so. Thus, the\noverwhelming number of states had already made the change. It has long been clear that early voting is\nthe type of convenience that is popular and necessary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n From Saturday October 26th<\/sup> through\nthis past Sunday, New Yorkers could vote in advance of Election Day, Tuesday,\nNovember 5th<\/sup>. And while the\nfinal numbers are not yet in, it looks like over 250,000 voters showed up at\nnearly 250 early voting polling sites across the state and that the glitches\nwere kept to a minimum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are some issues that need to be\naddressed before the next votes are cast. \nUnder the recently passed law, local boards of elections were given\ndiscretion in how many early voting sites that would be required and where they\nwould be located.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, the new law stated that each county\nshould provide at least one early voting polling place per 50,000 registered\nvoters. Seems simple enough. For those counties with voting populations\nless than 50,000, they had to have at least one early polling place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the early voting law has one big\nloophole: counties with large numbers of voters are not<\/em> be required to keep to the 50,000 voters per early voting\npolling site ratio. The law states that\nin no case shall a county be required<\/em>\nto have more than seven<\/em> sites, no\nmatter how large the population. Thus,\nthe largest counties have a lot of room in terms of the number of early voting\nlocations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sixteen counties had a ratio greater than one early voting location per 50,000 voters. Some large counties provided many voting sites. For example, Erie County had 37 early voting sites with a ratio of about 16,000 voters per location. On the other hand, Manhattan had a ratio of one early voting place for every 100,000 voters \u2013 double what was the goal in the law. Not illegal, but unfair to Manhattan voters as compared to Erie County. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The law also requires local boards of\nelections to consider<\/em>, but does not require<\/em>, certain factors when deciding\nwhere to locate early polling locations. \nThe law states that factors like \u201cpopulation density, travel time to the\npolling place, proximity to other early voting poll sites, public\ntransportation routes, commuter traffic patterns\u201d be considered. Yet, \u201cconsideration\u201d is not a mandate. In the county of Rensselaer, the city of Troy\n(population is about 50,000) had no early voting locations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Having New York\u2019s initial experience be\nduring an \u201coff-year\u201d election makes good sense. \nFewer voters show up at the polls and the elections bureaucracy learns\nfrom the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But policymakers need to learn too. Both houses of the Legislature should hold\nhearings to review the early election experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is clear, however, that the state needs to\nbe more demanding. New York should\nrequire that no county is allowed to ratios of voters to early voting poll of\nmore than 50,000 to one. And that every\nlocal community that relies heavily on mass transportation, or ones that have\ndense population centers, or rural areas in which distances are far, have\nreasonable access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One additional lesson to be learned involves money. For unknown reasons, the state government\ndidn\u2019t immediately let flow the $10 million earmarked to help counties, slowing\ndown efforts to plan and cover the costs. \nThe counties should get the resources that they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early voting is a reform that helps voters\ncast their ballots, a constitutional right. \nNew York should do all it can to make voting easier. In the modern world, allowing voters to cast\ntheir ballots during the time before election day makes sense and must be\ncontinued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it must be done in a manner that makes it\neasier for all voters, not just those in selected areas. Thus, new standards should be put in place\nthat ensure areas with the most people get the most early voting sites. And resources must be made available for those\nareas in which voters must travel long distances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We live in a representative democracy.\u00a0 Making the choice about who represents us should be easy and uncomplicated.\u00a0 Let\u2019s make sure that is the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the big changes in how New York runs its elections is a measure to allow \u201cearly voting.\u201d Early voting allows for people to cast their ballots in advance of Election Day. And early voting has been tested across the nation. When New York acted it became the 39th jurisdiction to do so. Thus, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2318"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2325,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318\/revisions\/2325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}