The months-long campaign is over, and voters who didn't cast a ballot during New York's early voting period will head to the polls Tuesday.
It's been very busy at the Onondaga County Board of Elections where Democratic Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny and Republican Elections Commissioner Kevin Ryan say the county had quite a turnout during the early-voting period ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
Commissioner Ryan says he has a request of voters when they arrive at their polling location.
"If there is a line, we ask that you be patient," Ryan said.
"I know there's been some issues at some of the early-voting locations thus far with long lines but again, it's a robust year, our people are doing their best and we will get the voters processed so they can cast their votes in an orderly fashion."
Ryan also says he encourages voters to examine each race individually, look at the candidates, their experience, backgrounds, qualifications and what they are saying they're going to do if elected, so you're making an informed choice.
The ballots will have races for New York governor, attorney general, state comptroller, along with races for state legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives, local races, and races for judicial roles as well.
Besides the races on the front of the ballot, Onondaga County voters will also decide the question about term limits for the county executive and county comptroller. Democratic Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny offered this advice to voters on the term-limits question.
"If you want term limits and you don't care which, vote 'yes' on both; if you have a strong preference of whether you want 12 or 16, you should vote 'yes' on one and 'no' on the other; and if you don't like term limits at all, vote 'no' on both," Czarny said.
Czarny says Proposition 1 is to impose a 12-year limit; Proposition 2 is to impose a 16-year term limit on the county executive and county comptroller. The propositions resulted from a negotiation between the county executive and the county legislature, but as part of the court-ordered stipulation, if Prop 1 passes and Prop 2 passes with a majority vote, then whichever one gets the majority or the top vote count will be the one enacted.
Besides the term-limit question, Ryan said certain towns will have other ballot questions to consider.
"I think the town of DeWitt has a referendum about changing the number of years of the office of town supervisor and I think LaFayette has one too about imposing a tax or raising a tax for emergency services in the town," says Ryan.
If voters have any questions, Czarny recommends visiting onvote.net
"Check your voting registration ... make sure you're up to date on your voting registration. It'll tell you where your voting location is. You have to go to your voting location on Election Day," said Czarny.
This year's campaign included visits from President Donald Trump to the Nicholas J. Pirro Convention Center at Oncenter on Oct. 9 and Vice President J.D. Vance to the Griffiss Institute in Rome on Nov. 2, as both campaigned for regional Republican candidates.
The polls are open on Election Day from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., a duration that Czarny describes as the longest polling hours in the country.
