MAYVILLE – The Chautauqua County Legislature will be holding its monthly committee meetings starting next week,with the Administrative Services Committee having several noteworthy items on its agenda.
In addition to resolutions involving the salaries of various elected county offices, the committee will also consider a motion, sponsored by Legislator Chairman Jay Gould (R-Ashville), opposing early voting in New York State. The opposition stems from legislation introduced in the State Assembly and the State Senate that would allow residents to vote up to 14 days prior to the general election and up to seven days prior to a special election.
According to the motion, the legislature would request the state not allow early voting throughout the state because of the additional cost that would be tacked on to the local board of elections. It is estimated it would cost the county $30,000 more each election if the law was enacted.
While Gould’s motion (which can be read in its entirety below) is expected to gain some support in Mayville, at least one person is speaking out against it. County Elections Commissioner Norman Green – who also serves as the County’s Democratic Party Chairman – is speaking out against the motion. Green has already sent a correspondence to members of the legislature, asking that they not support the motion.
Green cites both election day workload and an expansion of services to all voters in Chautauqua County as two reasons why he is in favor of early voting. A copy of his letter opposing the motion can also be found below.
The committee will meet Monday at 5:30 p.m in Room 331 of the Gerace Office Building. It is open to the public.
GOULD’S MOTION OPPOSING EARLY VOTING
TITLE: Opposing Proposed NYS Legislation A.689/S.1461 Establishing Early Voting for General, Primary and Special Elections
AT THE REQUEST OF: Chairman Gould:
WHEREAS, A.689 (Silver)/S.1461 (Stewart/Cousins) has been introduced in the New York State Legislature, establishing early voting in primary, general and special elections in New York State; and
WHEREAS, said bill would allow early voting to take place up to fourteen days before a general election and up to seven days before a primary and special election, from 8:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. on every early voting day including Saturday and Sunday; and
WHEREAS, the Chautauqua County Board of Elections would be required to select a minimum of 5 polling places throughout Chautauqua County and provide elections inspectors at each location; and
WHEREAS, the Chautauqua County Board of Elections would also be required to follow the same polling place protocols that are observed on election day on all early voting days; and
WHEREAS, significant costs will be associated with staffing early voting locations and printing county paper ballots associated with early voting in Chautauqua County; and
WHEREAS, additional strain will be placed on the Chautauqua County Board of Elections to recruit and train qualified election poll inspectors who have the availability to dedicate up to fourteen days for the general election and up to seven days for the primary election; and
WHEREAS, the 2% tax cap and insufficient relief from State-imposed mandates has already placed an unprecedented strain on local governments to provide more services with less funding; now, therefore let it be
KNOWN, That the Chautauqua County Legislature supports the New York Association of Counties’ opposition to the passage of this legislation requiring counties to implement early voting; and be it further
MOVED, that the Clerk of the Legislature shall forward certified copies of this Motion to Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, Senator Catharine Young, Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, the New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC) and all others deemed necessary and proper.
GREEN’S LETTER SUPPORTING EARLY VOTING
Monday June 17, 2013
Larry Barmore, Chair Administrative Services Committee
I apologize for not being available to appear in person to speak in favor of early voting. I note that your agenda contain an item “Opposing Proposed NYS Legislation A.689/S.1461 Establishing Early Voting for General, Primary and Special Elections.”
I am writing in behalf of the more than 80,000 voters of Chautauqua County who deserve and desire every expanded opportunity to vote. Currently thirty-two states allow voters to cast votes “early” before Election Day. About one third of all votes cast in the United States this past election were cast as part of early voting programs. Sadly, none of those early votes were cast in New York State.
Early voting is a process where voters in Chautauqua County will be able to vote on a series of days prior to General, Special and Primary elections. Early voting, under the bills’ proposal, will take place at four locations and the Board of Elections. If enacted by NYS, Brian and I have talked about locations in the Jamestown-Lakewood Farimount Avenue shopping district, Dunkirk-Fredonia Brigham Road shopping district, Charlotte and Findley Lake to give balance as well as Mayville. The length of time for early voting in the bill is three weeks before the elections. The time will be 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. We will not need to staff the Mayville voting facility, as we are already here for the most part and will be able to handle the workload with flex scheduling. While I once espoused a much smaller figure, Brian Abram and I agree that the cost to enact this will exceed $30,000 per election.
The cost is the bad news! The good news is that we will be able to expand our delivery of voting to our taxpayers at not too high of a cost. Additionally, this will decrease the Election Day work load at the poll sites and we will be able to long term reduce the number of workers at each poll site. The poll worker reduction is being facilitated by a bill in the Legislature that has much bi-partisan support and will increase the size of election districts due to capacity increases with the new voting machines. (And less voters who will need our service on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.)
In conclusion, be assured that your Board of Elections will continue to provide cost effective elections for the voters of our county. This budgetary item is not significant to as a cost for delivering increased service. I am confident we will realize final total cost savings and expanded service delivery.
Norman P. Green
Commissioner
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