State elections officials are in Syracuse with less than four weeks to go before Election Day, working to eliminate a massive backlog of voter registrations at the Onondaga County Board of Elections. This comes after the state Board of Elections issued a scathing letter to county officials over a number of issues.
Nine officials, including the director and deputy director of election operations for the state Board of Elections are at county offices hoping to reverse the ongoing backlog of voter registration applications that have snowballed in recent weeks.
It got to the point where the state sent a letter to the Republican and Democratic elections commissioners on October 4, expressing a grave concern about a situation that could not only threaten "the integrity of the upcoming election, but also undermine(s) the basic rights of all voters…especially military and overseas voters."
Democratic Commissioner Dustin Czarny said recently there were thousands of registrations waiting to be processed, and blamed it on a lack of staff.
“We don’t have enough people working there now,” Czarny told WRVO on September 24. “We are the lowest staffed Board of Elections in the state, per voter. And that’s going to get worse when we add all these voters.”
Czarny said the Onondaga County Board of Elections has one worker for every 14,000 voters, while the state average is one for every 8,000 – 10,000. Czarny and Republican Elections Commissioner Michele Sardo requested assistance from Onondaga County lawmakers at a budget hearing in September, asking for six new staff members to deal with the backlog.
The state, in its letter to the county, noted that by September 27, the backlog had grown to more than 23,000 unprocessed forms, falling to about 19,000 by October 1. They called that an egregious shortfall.
Further, a visit to the county by state elections officials determined there were several systemic problems with the registration backlog including mismanagement of staff resources, breakdowns in communication, a lack of productivity, and insufficient adherence to proper processes.
There was particular concern from the state about handling military and overseas voter documents, with more than two dozen unprocessed, something mandated by federal law.
State officials say all but one form had been sent out by federal deadlines.
Czarny declined an interview for this story, but in a statement, he said the county is working with the state elections officials and hopes to have the backlog cleared up shortly. He also said he’s confident that the county has implemented "recent recommended changes, and that along with the recent hiring of temporary staff will help fulfill the obligation to the voters this year and into the future."
Officials said that, as of late Wednesday, the backlog of registrations was down to about 500.
