VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Onondaga County breaks early voting records to start 2024 Election
Ilana Epstein: Skyler, thank you. Well, across the Empire State, New Yorkers have hit the polls like never before through early voting. Right here in Onondaga County, more than 11,000 voted in person on Saturday, that’s more than any single day of early voting since it started five years ago. Our reporter Peter Elliott is live from DeWitt Town Hall to tell us more. Peter?
Peter Elliott: Yeah Austin and Ilana, it’s been another busy day here at DeWitt Town Hall, one of the most popular of the ten early voting sites here in Onondaga County. I want to step out now just to give you a look at what the line is right now at 4:13 p.m. It’s raining pretty heavily, but that is not stopping voters from turning out, umbrellas and all. We were here just before polls opened at noon, we saw the line swell from just a handful of people to well over a hundred. Voters filling up the parking lots on their way to filling out their ballots.
Elliott: For Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny, late October is a busy time. Especially when voters are making history in Onondaga County.
Dustin Czarny: You know, we are breaking records. The first three days were all the top three days ever, over 30,000 people have voted.
Elliott: Tuesday marks the fourth day of early voting in the county, following a strong start on Saturday.
James Lanning: The first day we had over 11,000 voters in Onondaga County, and that set a new single-day record.
Elliott: James Lanning is in charge of making sure those votes are tabulated. He’s the poll site technician at the DeWitt Town Hall, one of the most popular of the ten early voting sites in the county. He’s remained busy, given the “very spirited turnout,” including first-time early voters like Barbara Lance, from East Syracuse.
Barbara Lance: I was hoping to beat the crowd, but I didn’t…I was a little surprised to see the line when I pulled in, but it moved along really fast, so it didn’t take more than 45 minutes, so it was good.
Elliott: But if you’re looking to avoid the wait, officials are encouraging voters to look online.
Lanning: They can go to the Onondaga County Board of Elections website and see the wait times for all the early voting locations.
Elliott: So that once you get to your polling place.
Lance: You got your ballot and you voted and put it in the machine and you’re done.
Elliott: And in spite of all this rain, the polls will remain open at all of the early voting sites in Onondaga County. They’ll re-open tomorrow at noon. Early voting in the county runs until Sunday. We’re live this afternoon in DeWitt, I’m Peter Elliott, NCC News.
DEWITT, N.Y. (NCC News) — When Barbara Lance pulled into the parking lot at the DeWitt Town Hall to vote on Tuesday, she was surprised by the line that awaited her.
“I was hoping to beat the crowd, but I didn’t,” said Lance.
The East Syracuse resident got in line just after the polls opened at noon and emerged from the town hall 45 minutes later, sporting an “I Voted” sticker on her vest.
“They told us 30 (minutes),” said Lance. “Forty-five is not bad, I’ll take it.”
Many voters have shared a similar experience, part of a record-breaking wave of early voting in Onondaga County.
It started on Saturday, with more than 11,000 people casting their ballots, a single-day record. Through the first three days, over 30,000 votes have been counted, the best stretch in that amount of time in county electoral history.
On Tuesday, the line outside the DeWitt Town Hall swelled to well more than one hundred people in the early afternoon, stretching down the sidewalk outside the building and snaking through an improvised queue made of traffic cones and caution tape.
Of the ten sites spread across the county, the DeWitt Town Hall is one of the most popular, along with the Clay Town Hall and Camillus Fire Department. But a number of voting sites, like the North Syracuse Community Center and Onondaga Community College, have seen virtually no wait times.
Voters have been encouraged to consult the live wait time tracker on the county government’s website, new this election cycle. It updates every half hour with the time from the back of the line to the poll pads.
The tool has been popular so far with voters, garnering over 20,000 pageviews since it launched according to Dustin Czarny, the county’s democratic elections commissioner.
He anticipates turnout to increase leading up to Election Day, as long as past early voting tendencies hold true.
“I think people are very motivated,” said Czarny. “You’ve gotta remember, the last presidential election that we had was (during) a pandemic, so more people voted by mail. You’re seeing the people who maybe voted by mail last time decide to early vote.”
The record early turnout comes after the Onondaga County Board of Elections received an excoriating letter from the state board of elections earlier this month. State officials were troubled by a massive backlog of over 23,000 voter registration applications that had gone unfiled.
The county has since caught up on the pile of paperwork, with the help of nine additional workers from the state board of elections.
Czarny has blamed the backlog on a lack of staff and an unprecedented surge in registration forms this summer after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and the Democratic Party endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Republican Donald Trump.
The deadline for online early voter registration has passed, but you can still request a ballot in-person at the board of elections office at 1000 Erie Blvd W. in Syracuse.
Early voting ends on Sunday, Nov. 3. Sites across the county open on Wednesday at noon and close at 8 p.m. On Thursday and Friday, the polls will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., before shifting to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. over the weekend.
Lance, who voted early for the first time, says it was a simple process. She thinks she’ll do it again in the future.
“I just hope everybody gets out and votes,” said Lance. “We’re gonna need it.”