early voting

New York's highest court has heard arguments in a Republican-led challenge of a law that allows any registered voter to cast a mail-in ballot during the early voting period.

Early voting drew about 1,200 voters out of the nearly 198,000 registered Democrats and Republicans in Onondaga County.

According to the New York State Board of Elections, just over 3% of voters cast their ballots during early voting, which ended Sunday.

The Democratic State Senate majority recently passed a voting and board of election reform package.

The Board of Elections said this year’s numbers are quadruple the 2021 and 2019 numbers.

Early voting kicks off this weekend and runs through November 6. Polls in Cayuga, Cortland, Madison, Oswego and Onondaga counties open at 9 a.m. Saturday.

Tuesday is Election Day in New York. In this off-year election, voters will choose local lawmakers, judges, as well as the mayor of Syracuse. There are also five statewide ballot propositions on the back of the ballot, ranging from expanding voter access to environmental issues.

Republican lawmakers vowed to make changes in response to false claims of election fraud in 2020, when Democrats won the presidential race in Georgia then flipped both U.S. Senate seats.

The second year of early voting in New York has been a resounding success. In Onondaga County alone, nearly 60,000 voters cast ballots during the nine day…

More than 6 million voters under 30 have cast early ballots, compared with roughly 2 million at the same time in 2016. The number of first-time voters in that group has doubled in four years.