Election officials and voting advocates are urging voters to come prepared for primary day by knowing where their polling site is, what party they’re registered in and what their rights are once they walk through the door.
County boards of elections across the state have spent months getting sites ready.
“We’ve trained inspectors, we’ve tested equipment, we’ve taken in vote by mail ballots, we’ve done all of this in a bipartisan fashion,” said Dustin Czarny, the Democratic commissioner of the Onondaga County Board of Elections.
Polling sites are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Election officials say the check-in process is designed to be straightforward.
“Once they check in and they’re eligible to vote, they’ll be given a ballot. They then can go fill it out and put it in the machine and then the vote will be cast,” said Kevin Ryan, the Republican commissioner of the Onondaga County Board of Elections.
Party registration is a key factor in who can participate. Only voters enrolled in a party may cast a ballot in that party’s primary.
“You can only vote in the primary of the party you are registered to vote in. If you don’t have a party or you’re an independent voter, you cannot vote in a primary,” said Joanne Shawhan, co-president of the Albany County League of Women Voters.
Several rules govern conduct at polling sites. Voters are guaranteed privacy while filling out their ballots unless they request assistance. New York does not require identification at the polls, except for first-time voters. Any voter in line by 9 p.m. will be permitted to cast a ballot. Campaign shirts, buttons and stickers are prohibited within 100 feet of any polling site.
“We keep a watchful eye out for that because we want fairness in our electoral system,” Ryan said.
More than 270,000 ballots were cast during the early voting period, up from more than 250,000 in 2019, the first year early voting was available in the state. The two Onondaga County commissioners drew different conclusions from those figures.
“Overall voter turnout is not being increased because of early voting — it’s the same people voting, they just do it on a different day,” Ryan said.
Czarny disagreed with that framing.
“Early voting is not about turnout. It’s about convenience for the voters that are showing up,” he said.
Voting advocates say participation is fundamental to democracy.
“If you live here and want to have some say in the way your world works, you need to vote,” Shawhan said.
Officials stressed that many polling sites have changed this cycle, making it especially important for voters to confirm their location before heading out. Voters who arrive at the wrong site may still cast an affidavit ballot by signing a form attesting to their registration status; those ballots are verified after Election Day.