Previously Published in The Messenger
Last year, Albany Democrats and Governor Kathy Hochul (D) passed a law that would align local elections conducted in the odd-numbered years to coincide with even-year elections. The stated logic in the move was to increase turnout, especially among minority voters, limit voter fatigue, and streamline the overall election process.
The odd-numbered election years are often dedicated to local elections, those that include county executive, town supervisors, county legislatures, town boards, village boards, highway superintendents, tax receivers, and clerks, most of whom were on the ballot in Suffolk County two years ago.
The even-numbered years are when presidential and midterm elections are held. Almost always nationalized, sometimes to a fault, these elections are notorious for denying capable candidates of an elected office simply because of down-ballot energy.
In October, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled the law was unconstitutional. After a lengthy appeal process, the State Court of Appeals has ruled that it is, in fact, constitutional.
The elected officials from Suffolk and Nassau counties are doing the right thing in continuing their fervent opposition to this law. We’ve argued before that this is nothing more than partisan damage control and ideological suffocation. We still hold those beliefs, along with the serious issues this could entail.
First, the size of the ballot is laughable at best. It took three people to hold up the unrolled ballot from side to side. Imagine not only being handed that monstrosity when you hit the polls in November, but also being expected to give each candidate your own personal research time to make an informed decision.
Second, the nebulous concept of “voter fatigue.” A big argument in favor of this initiative is that voters are simply tired of having to go to the polls year after year, something that Suffolk’s own Senator Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood) stated to us when the law was passed last year.
We find it interesting that the party of “protecting democracy” is pushing so hard to let the voters have a year off. The reality is, whether you as a voter are tired or not, voting is your civic duty and responsibility. It is incumbent upon the electorate to make their own informed decisions and to do their own research. Shifting elections to even-numbered years isn’t giving the voters time off; it’s giving them less time to respond with their approval or disapproval at the ballot box.
We also understand Suffolk County Legislature Minority Leader Jason Richberg’s (D-West Babylon) point in increasing turnout, especially among minority voters. While he is correct that turnout normally plummets in local years compared to even years, we don’t think this initiative will achieve what he hopes. Instead of more people, minority voters or otherwise, simply going to the polls, it will likely be more voters in general wrapped up in nationalized elections and greeted with a logistical headache with a massive ballot.
We would compare this to simply shoving our belongings haphazardly into a closet, shutting the doors, and saying the room is clean. It might solve the problem at face value, but under the hood, more serious issues remain. Yes, voters would probably turn out more, but would their votes be delivered with all the information delivered to them in separate vacuums? It can be a lot to research each candidate as is, but one person can only take so much, especially when their eyes are on the presidential race or a marquee statewide race, while their local issues languish behind. Keeping local elections separate allows the best chance for information vacuums to remain in place.
We would even estimate that if this law sticks, we would probably see ballot drop-off towards the local end. It’s possible that many would just vote in the federal races and leave the others blank. We’ve seen this happen in the last presidential race; some voters just opted for a White House pick and had no opinion on local officeholders.
The will of the voter is confined to the voter only; how and for whom they vote is their prerogative. But for this bill’s objective, we don’t think this is really a “fix.”
We’ve seen interesting electoral patterns where an elected official of a party isn’t on the ballot, but their colleagues of the same party who are on the ballot often get punished. We believe this was an element of New York’s tectonic shift to the right in the 2024 presidential election – the 10.5% rightward swing was the largest shift in the nation. The dysfunction from Manhattan and Albany, we believe, contributed much to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ (D-CA) historic underperformance in November. Mayor Eric Adams (D) and Governor Hochul weren’t on the ballot, but Harris was.
However, the most insulting aspect of the “voter fatigue” argument, and the law overall, is that voters will have significantly reduced power in local years. New York might be an emerging battleground, but it’s still a blue state fundamentally. It doesn’t necessarily mean it will be as contentious as Pennsylvania, for instance, but it likely means Democrats will have to start investing in defense in a state that was typically a write-off for them. Albany Democrats are banking on top-down electoral energy to dilute the local waters to elect Democrats up and down the ballot, especially when it comes to preserving their Senate majority.
And that’s where this idea should have been DOA. Local elections are sacrosanct for a reason; the politics of Washington, Albany, and Manhattan should not have any electoral infusion to Suffolk’s – or Nassau’s – electoral independence. Republicans and Democrats in Suffolk are different from those of the national level, or even the state level to some extent. Voters should be able to see the idiosyncrasies for themselves, not be overwhelmed with a deluge of dozens of names on a ballot, while the presidential and gubernatorial races suck the oxygen out of the room.
The most insulting aspect of this bill is that New York City is, somehow – and, of course – off the hook. A new border has been drawn around NYC and the rest of the state, wherein Big Apple voters will still be afforded the same courtesy of an unmitigated local ballot.
Moreover, to Legislator Richberg’s point, wouldn’t increased minority turnout be especially effective in New York City, where much of the state’s minority population is located? It sounds like Albany is doing a disservice to the minority voters who rightly should participate in elections every year by not extending this courtesy to the state’s biggest basket of minority votes.
If Albany wasn’t governing with only NYC in mind before, they certainly are now.
The idea has been so widely panned that even Newsday’s editorial board encouraged Hochul to reject the bill – she didn’t. Suffolk County Legislator Tom Donnelly (D-Deer Park) was the only Democrat in Hauppauge to join the Republican-led lawsuit against it. Good on all who can recognize a bad idea when they see one.
Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine (R-Center Moriches) and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman (R-Atlantic Beach) are and have been correct: Long Island is regularly short-changed by Albany despite being an economic powerhouse without which the state could not pay its bills. One would think some courtesy would be extended to one of your biggest financers, but even the rural communities and counties are being shortchanged in both dollars and ideology.
The reality is that Albany Democrats, instead of governing in a way to stem the nation leading outmigration and fix the problems that imperiled Hochul in 2022, Harris in 2024, and will likely imperil Hochul further in 2026, they chose to shuffle the deck and bury the lede to obfuscate just how much New York is changing and how unpopular Democratic policies are.
Our proposition: communicate with voters that local government has a much more immediate effect on their lives than other forms of government. Sure, it’s not an easy “fix” by signing a law, but it’s the most realistic campaign to increase turnout. Problems with your local roads, crime, and property tax bill are adjudicated through your local representatives, law enforcement, and school boards. The president, by and large, has nothing to do with those aspects of local life.
This is perhaps one of the worst ideas to come out of Albany in recent years, and those who have backed it either don’t or won’t realize how short-changed their own constituents will be if this law remains on the books.
We can only hope that this will be the final tap of gunpowder that backfires against the Democrats in 2026.