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Low early voting turnout in Onondaga County for 2024 presidential primary

Ava Pukatch
/
WRVO

Early voting for the 2024 presidential primary in New York is over.

Early voting drew about 1,200 voters out of the nearly 198,000 registered Democrats and Republicans in Onondaga County. Since both Donald Trump and Joe Biden already have enough delegates to clinch their respective party nominations, Onondaga County Democratic Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny said it's kind of been a "zombie" primary.

"It's tough," Czarny said. "And I wish that we had moved this primary to earlier in the cycle, so would have been part of the competitive part of the primary or later in June, you know, if it's not going to be competitive, we might as well combine it with the Congressional."

Czarny said this election will cost about $400,000 — noting there are certain laws they have to follow for an election regardless of whether they think there'll be a high or low turnout.

"We have to open up a certain number of poll sites," Czarny said. "We have to open up a certain number of early voting sites because of the eligible voters that are are willing to run. Now Commissioner Sardo and I have done a great job of trying to combat costs. We have minimum staffing levels at these. We reduced from 10 down to 8. We did what we could."

Election Day polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesday.

Ava Pukatch joined the WRVO news team in September 2022. She previously reported for WCHL in Chapel Hill, NC and earned a degree in Journalism and Media from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UNC, Ava was a Stembler Scholar and a reporter and producer for the award-winning UNC Hussman broadcast Carolina Connection. In her free time, Ava enjoys theatre, coffee and cheering on Tar Heel sports. Find her on Twitter @apukatch.