Early voting in New York began over the weekend and runs through Sunday. As voters head to the polls, WAMC’s Aaron Shellow-Lavine and Sam Dingman discuss some of the most commonly asked questions when it comes to voting in New York.
TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Dingman: Early voting in New York began over the weekend and runs through Sunday. As WAMC listeners and non-listeners alike head to the polls, we thought it would be a good use of time to track down the answers to some of the more commonly asked questions when it comes to voting in New York. Aaron, this was your assignment.
Shellow-Lavine: That is correct, Sam Dingman. And before we go any further, I’d like to offer a brief bit of context — saying early voting began over the weekend is a bit of an understatement. According to the state Board of Elections data, early voting over the weekend was massive: 485,000 people cast ballots on Saturday and Sunday… compared to the last time Governor Hochul was up for election, 2022, that’s an 85% increase. Only 262,000 people showed up that first weekend. The largest growth came in areas with hotly contested congressional races.
Dingman: Those would be New York’s 17th Congressional District (Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler v. Democratic challenger Cait Conley) in the lower Hudson Valley and New York’s 21st Congressional District (Republican Anthony Constantino v. Democrat Blake Gendebien) up in the North Country, right?
Shellow-Lavine: Yup! A peek at some of the counties in the sprawling 21st district, including near-200% increases in first-weekend turnout, including a 236% increase from 2022 in Washington County.
Dingman: Ok so, that initial disclaimer aside, what do people need to know before heading to the polls either early, or on election day Tuesday?
Shellow-Lavine: In New York, you typically don’t need your ID to vote! You just need to show up ready to provide your signature. I spoke with the League of Women Voters New York State Executive Director Erica Smitka about that:
Smitka: We do a confirmation of someone’s eligibility to vote when they apply to vote, and so your identity and if you are an eligible voter all of that is checked when you apply to register to vote, checked by that bipartisan team of election officials who are comparing your information against federal and state databases to ensure you are an eligible voter. So by the time you show up to the polls on Election Day, you have already been through the affirmation process, and all you need to do is bring yourself and your signature.
Shellow-Lavine: She added there’s one caveat, though.
Smitka: I should note that if you are a first-time voter, and you didn’t provide proof of eligibility when you first registered to vote, you may be asked for I.D. when you get to the polls, but that’s the only instance in which a voter would need to bring anything with them when they get to the polls.
Dingman: There’s always a round of criticisms around the lack of ID needed to vote in the state, what are else elections officials doing to ensure the sanctity of this and every election?
Shellow-Lavine: It’s a great question and a valid initial concern, though there’s so much work done before people head to the polls to prevent any sort of voter fraud (like we just heard) and Saratoga County election commissioner Cass Bagramian gave me an incomplete list of the work that goes into protecting the vote.
Bagramian: We’ve got chain of custody documents, the sheriff forums helps us deliver results back to some towns we’re not able to get to, bags are sealed, and there’s like three or four different checks before we even load those results into our system and release them as actual results.
Shellow-Lavine: She also told me that elections commissions will test the various security measures starting about a month and a half ahead of an election to make sure everything is working properly.
Dingman: What happens if people arrive to the polls and realize they aren’t registered where they think they are, maybe they moved and forgot to register?
Shellow-Lavine: In New York they’d be able to do what we call affidavit voting!
Bagramian: It’s the same exact ballot that they would ….WORD?…… like everybody else. However, this ballot doesn’t get scanned into the voting machine; it gets put into an envelope, which is essentially a registration form. And that gets brought back to the Board of Elections and we manually count that ballot because we research it to ensure that that is a ballot that should be counted.
Dingman: Alright, so what else did you learn in the course of your reporting?
Shellow-Lavine: Last tidbits: by state law, lines at polls are not supposed to take more than 30 minutes to get through. If you are in line for more than half an hour, you can contact your local board of elections and then they’re able to take whatever necessary steps to shorten the wait time. Also, I feel like I always see some viral videos of people saying they got kicked out of a poll site simply for wearing their candidate’s merchandise. Bagramian said you’re welcomed to wear political garb, but…
Bagramian: Electioneering is what is against election law. And simply wearing a hat, walking in to vote, scanning your ballot and then leaving is not considered electioneering. What is would be, among many other things, but to just give you a brief example: “Ok I’m wearing this hat that says anything at all that’s political and I’ve cast my ballot, and now I’m just going to hang out.” You can’t just hang out. You gotta go, you gotta be on your way. And that’s just fine. If you start hanging out, then that becomes electioneering.
Shellow-Lavine: Lastly, Bagramian and Smitka both said one of the most important things you can do when you go to vote is to give poll workers some grace. They are all trained and know what they’re talking about, but with the already record turnout, everyone’s going to be under a bit of stress.
