SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS)- Another year of elections has concluded here in Onondaga County but, according to Board Of Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny, the problem of low turnout is still prevalent.
“Local elections have an unfortunate bad track record of drawing a lot of voters,” Czarny said. “Some of it is lack of competition but some of it is just a little bit of apathy on the voters’ part for their local races. This is something that has gone back for generations.”
While voting this year was fairly normal, one thing was different- the amount of uncontested ballots. This year there were more than 60 races where candidates ran unopposed, something Czarny says is a result of two factors.
“Inside the city of Syracuse and in the rural towns we have polarization where one party is dominant in the registration and it’s very hard for the other party to be able to even run for office,” Czarny said. “So then you see in the county legislature level we have gerrymandered maps that make it very hard for people to run inside those districts. There’s a lawsuit going on to try to solve that but until that happens, you see people that maybe will not take a chance at running in that election.”
Another change this year came from voting machines. New voting on-demand systems and systems that tabulate ballots were rolled out to all polling places across the county. Czarny says the new systems helped them get out results quickly.
“I think we did as good a job as possible for the resources we have on-hand.”
Between now and November 14th, the absentee ballots will be tabulated. The Board of Elections will also audit polling machines and absentees to ensure accuracy. After Thanksgiving, any races with a 20 vote difference will be hand-counted.
