Last year, just around Christmas time, Albany Democrats and Governor Kathy Hochul (D) instituted a change that moves off-year elections to even-year elections. It’s a change that fundamentally alters how our elections will be run and how results will be decided. For this column, we’d like to remind the public of the change and unpack what its likely effects will be.
Off-Year Elections as They Currently Stand
Currently, off-year elections are held on odd-numbered years. They encompass local elections only, larger special elections notwithstanding. Suffolk County just had a host of local elections. County Executive, County Legislature, Town Board/Council, Town Supervisor, Town Clerk, and other positions, such as Assessors, Trustees, Highway and Superintendents were all on the ballot. These elected officials tend to be the most accessible and their decisions often have the greatest effects on constituents’ lives, wallets, and quality of life.
Additionally, these elections are often the greatest bellwethers for political moods on larger scales, as the voters who turn out to vote in these races will often vote in any other race up the ballot. Partisan moods across other years’ ballots can often correspond to the moods in these elections, as they are the most rudimentary form of organized politics.
On the other hand, these elections can produce much more ticket-splitting and crossover support, as local electeds are often viewed less in a lens of partisanship and more in one of constituent service and job approval.
Even-Year Elections as They Currently Stand
Even-year elections play host to more high-profile tickets: presidential, federal, and state elections, along with some local positions coincide on certain even years, while federal, state, and other local positions coincide on the others. All state representatives are up every two years and since they’re paired with presidential and midterm years, they can be more susceptible to anti-White House voting tendencies. This was apparent in New York, as state Democrats rode the national blue wave to make gains in the Assembly and flip the Senate for the first time in decades.
Midterm years have a much larger emphasis on local politics. Members of the New York State Assembly and Senate fit into the fold of constituent service-centric work ethic, but are still in throes of partisan politics, albeit to a smaller degree than congressional elections.
Some local positions that are already on the ballot in even years include Suffolk County Comptroller, Suffolk County Clerk, and town judgeship positions.
In terms of congressional elections, members of the U.S. House are up for re-election every two years. These always coincide with the presidency and midterm races, making them highly susceptible to partisan politics, hot-button issues, and voting records. Each election season usually sees a couple dozen candidates in crossover districts, those that vote for one party for president but elect a representative from another party. Joe Biden (D-DE) won NY-01 and NY-04 under the current boundaries, but both have Republican Congressmen.
Presidential election years are the most partisan, despite a president having the lowest effect on citizen’s lives, at least relative to the local representatives. With split-ticket voting much less common and hyperpartisanship at an all-time high, there’s often not much wiggle room for other candidates to score wins at other levels if one party dominates a state’s politics.
What the Change Entails
New York decided to merge the off-year and even-year elections for a myriad of reasons. Voter fatigue, public funding of elections each year, and higher turnout are the top three reasons cited for making the change. The change is set to take effect after 2025.
This means that all of the local positions mentioned in the first section, specifically those that were just on the ballot in 2023, will now be susceptible to down ballot tendencies in presidential and midterm years.
From a logistical standpoint, the change also means that ballots will now be packed with dozens of candidates, ranging from Washington down to Hauppauge or your local Town Hall. Local candidates will need to vie for oxygen in the room to make their cases from voters and run specifically on their platforms and records whilst staying afloat amid national or statewide partisan preferences.
Additionally, more money will likely have to flow to election precincts due to larger ballots and processing of votes, requiring more staff.
The change will also undoubtedly make advertising a much larger game for candidates, with those with larger war chests pricing out smaller, local candidates out of pricey New York media markets.
Furthermore, for your local publications, interviewing candidates for campaign spotlights is no small task.
The Messenger sat down with nearly all forty candidates from both parties in just our three towns of coverage in 2023 alone. Adding State, Congressional, and federal-level office seekers will make it a much taller order, and nearly every page will be dedicated to such content every week leading up to Election Day.
Finally, although Albany has cited voter fatigue as a reason for the change, voters will now have to endure an onslaught of election-related content, advertisements, mailers, petitions for ballot access, and solicitations for donations. Albany’s reasoning for voter fatigue lies within their belief that voters could do with a year off from the polls and the common quip that “every year is an election year.”
How Will it Affect Results?
This one is mostly conjecture, but we’re confident in our answer from our knowledge of the field. Since down ballot voting is stronger than ever, and split-ticket voting is mostly a thing of the past in federal and marquee elections, it is a great concern of many that such tendencies will drown out local candidates’ abilities to differentiate themselves from the national spotlight.
While partisan politics does have relevance on the local level, there are much greater and more consistent displays of bipartisanship on the local level. Additionally, partisan lines are much more obscured in light of local issues. Perhaps the major issue of the 2023 elections was the sewer referendum at the County Legislature. None of the national talking points and hot-button issues were on the ballot in the local races this year, and very rarely are they ever.
The local elections have been-off year for decades simply due to the separation of larger, higher-stakes elections that draw more out to the polls simply due to partisanship, especially nowadays. Keeping these levels of government separate at the ballot box has been the intention to keep local, intimate levels of government in their own bubble. Combining them creates scenarios where a single issue can dominate an entire electoral landscape, as abortion did in the 2022 midterms. Since Suffolk County can’t amend abortion laws one way or the other, it doesn’t make sense to make them uncontrollably on the hook for the decisions of lawmakers and judges well above them across the country.
