{"id":279344,"date":"2026-06-26T21:34:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T21:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/279344\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T21:34:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T21:34:36","slug":"ny-primary-early-voting-starts-june-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/279344\/","title":{"rendered":"NY Primary: Early voting starts June 13"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 Polls have closed as of 9 p.m. for Primary Day<\/a> in New York State. People had the chance to decide which candidates would secure their party\u2019s nomination for the General Election.<\/p>\n

This year, there are so many key races across the country, with all 435 U.S. House seats and 35 U.S. Senate seats up for grabs in November. In the 25th Congressional District in the Rochester area, two Democrats challenged Rep. Joe Morelle. For the 24th District, which includes the Finger Lakes area, two Democrats ran for the nomination to run against Rep. Claudia Tenney. There are also some primaries in state and local races.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Everything you need to know about casting your ballot in this year\u2019s primary<\/a><\/p>\n

To vote in the primary, you needed to be registered with a political party. That\u2019s different from the General Election on Tuesday, Nov. 3, where you only need to register as a voter. Peter Elder, the Republican\u00a0commissioner\u00a0of the\u00a0Monroe County\u00a0Board of\u00a0Elections, asked people to check their eligibility before heading to the polls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing, I think, is just to know whether or not you\u2019re eligible for this primary. That will make it a lot better, because if you go there and you\u2019re not eligible, it\u2019s kind of frustrating. You\u2019ve taken all the time to get to the building and this over the site, and suddenly you get there, and you\u2019re, I can\u2019t vote because I\u2019m maybe not registered to any party at all,\u201d Elder said.<\/p>\n

In total, the county had over 200 polling locations. This marked the second year that Monroe County has used new voting machines with an electronic touchscreen. <\/p>\n

Primary Day comes after nine days of early voting for all local counties. For Monroe County, 9,657 people voted early across 15 sites, according to the Board of Elections<\/a>. The Brighton Farmer\u2019s Market had the most ballots cast with a total of 1,645. <\/p>\n

WATCH: News10NBC\u2019s Primary Election coverage from June 23<\/a><\/p>\n

Congressional primaries<\/p>\n

The AP reported that Rep. Joe Morelle has won the 25th Congressional District\u2019s Democratic ticket. He was challenged by two other Democrats: Robin Wilt, a business owner and former Brighton Town Board member, and Sherita Traywick, a lawyer, pastor, and founder of Young & Gifted Global Ministries. He will face off against Republican Virginia McIntyre, who has served as a Monroe County legislator since 2024.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Here\u2019s who\u2019s primarying and running against Rep. Joe Morelle in the 25th District<\/a><\/p>\n

For the 24th District, no Republican challengers have emerged against incumbent Rep. Claudia Tenney. <\/p>\n

The AP reported that Alissa Ellman has won the Democratic ticket for the U.S. House 24th District, defeating Dianna Kastenbaum. Ellman will face Tenney in November.<\/p>\n

Primaries in state races<\/p>\n

According to the AP, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has won his race after being challenged by two Democrats: Drew Warshaw and Raj Goyle. He\u2019ll be on the ballot in November.<\/p>\n

For New York State government elections, no one is primarying Gov. Kathy Hochul. Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado initially launched a campaign against Hochul before backing out.<\/a> No one is primarying Hochul\u2019s challenger, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, either. <\/p>\n

There are also some primaries for state assembly and state senate seats. For the 137th Assembly District in Rochester and Gates, Mercedes Vazquez Simmons, vice president of the Monroe County Legislature, is primarying the incumbent Democrat<\/a>, Assembly Member Demond Meeks. <\/p>\n

For the 130th Assembly District in Wayne County and Webster, three Republicans are vying for the nomination: Mark Johns, George Dobbins, and\u00a0Summer Johnson. It comes after Assembly Member Brian Manktelow, a Republican, decided not to seek re-election<\/a>. In addition, two Democrats, Carl Fitzsimmons and Joseph Lamanna, are vying for their party\u2019s nomination.<\/p>\n

For the 54th Senate District, encompassing several counties in the Finger Lakes region, two Democrats are vying for the nomination to challenge Senator Pam Helming, the incumbent Republican. Either Scott Comegys or Michael Mills will receive the Democratic nomination. <\/p>\n

There are also some primaries in local races. See the links in this story to see who\u2019s running in your county.<\/p>\n

Primaries in local races<\/p>\n

You can see who\u2019s running in local races on your county\u2019s board of elections website:<\/p>\n

How to absentee vote<\/p>\n

If you need an absentee ballot for the primary, you can apply online, by mail, or at your county\u2019s board of elections office. If you apply by mail or online, the board of elections must receive the absentee ballot no later than ten days before the election. If you apply in person, applications must be received no later than the day before the election. You can learn more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

State election officials are encouraging voters to return their mail-in ballots as soon as possible because of changes to U.S. Postal Service procedures. New this year, a postmark reflects the date a mail piece is processed at a postal facility, rather than the date it was deposited in the mail. That means your ballot may not receive a postmark until a later date, so voters should mail their ballots well before the deadline.<\/p>\n

What to do if you run into issues<\/p>\n

If you run into any issues at the polls or with voting by mail, you can call New York State\u2019s Election\u00a0Protection\u00a0Hotline\u00a0at (866) 390-2992. The hotline, run by the State Attorney General\u2019s Office, will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. during early voting days and from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Primary Day.<\/p>\n

News10 got a few emails Tuesday morning about some technical problems at a few polling sites. The Board of Elections told us there were a few isolated incidents, but none of them prevented anyone from voting and they were cleared up almost right away. <\/p>\n

Voter turnout <\/p>\n

As of 2 p.m. Tuesday, about 10% of eligible democrats in the county had voted in the races. On the other side of the aisle, there is just one republican race in the county, and the turnout for that is at 9%. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think there was only one other person voting when I was in there, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s because of the time of day or more people are voting early or maybe it is because it\u2019s a primary and fewer people tend to vote in primaries then the general but yea, quick and easy process today,\u201d said Adam Goldfarb. <\/p>\n

William Platt, who is a site chair at one of the polling sites, said things have been reasonable Tuesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe turn out was really good during early voting and it\u2019s been reasonable today. There\u2019s times of the day that get busier and slower depending on when people have available but it\u2019s been very good,\u201d said Platt. <\/p>\n

This is the second primary day where the new voting machines are being used here in Monroe County and the people we\u2019ve talked with really like them. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to keep in mind there were about 10,000 people in Monroe County who voted early this year. Those votes are already in the hands of the Board of Elections and will be counted along with these returns when the polls close. <\/p>\n

To see election results after the polls close, click here.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0Rep. Joe Morelle<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Rep. Claudia Tenney<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Bruce Blakeman<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0New York primary<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0gov. Kathy Hochul<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 Polls have closed as of 9 p.m. for Primary Day in New York State. People…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1626,3932,9,11,10,107330,49,51,50,60686,60685],"class_list":["post-279344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-bruce-blakeman","tag-gov-kathy-hochul","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-primary","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-rep-claudia-tenney","tag-rep-joe-morelle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}