Archive: Opinions

New guidance from Albany allowed our local Board of Elections to accept absentee ballot requests because of COVID.  "A bill signed by the Governor authorizes voters to request an absentee ballot due to risk of illness, including COVID-19. Voters should choose "Temporary Illness" as their reason for requesting an absentee ballot.  If you want to vote by mail you must request your absentee ballot by October 27th.  Then you must carefully and correctly fill it in.  And you must put enough postage on the envelope (I'm told two stamps are needed).  If you goof it up your vote won't count.

And if ever there was an election year when we need our votes to count, this is it.

To vote at all you have to be registered by October 9th.  Once registered you have three ways to vote: Early Voting from October 24 through November 1, mail-in ballots, or voting at your normal polling place on November 3rd.

The State has a handy voter-registration lookup Web page that not only tells whether you are registered to vote, but provides an address and a map to your polling place, and identifies all the districts you are voting in (such as town, county, Senate, Assembly, Congressional, Town and ward districts as applicable.


New guidance from Albany allowed our local Board of Elections to accept absentee ballot requests because of COVID.  "A bill signed by the Governor authorizes voters to request an absentee ballot due to risk of illness, including COVID-19. Voters should choose 'Temporary Illness' as their reason for requesting an absentee ballot.  if you want to vote by mail you must request your absentee ballot by October 27th.

The State Web site explains:

• Completed ballots must be returned by mail (postmarked) or hand-delivered to the Board of Elections or dropped off at any poll site (including Early Voting sites) by Election Day, Tuesday, November 3.
• Even if you have requested, received, or completed and returned a mail ballot, you can still vote in-person early or on Election Day. The in-person vote will be the (only) one that counts.

Here's the thing -- follow the directions very, very carefully.  I once sat through a session at our County Board of Elections at which absentee ballots were counted, and a good number were rejected for various reasons that came down to the voter not paying attention to the directions. Here is something to think about: tens of thousands of votes were disqualified in New York State in the recent primary election, because voters didn’t sign the affirmation letter that accompanied their mail-in ballots.  Where on the ballot you put things, and if you put too much or too little... it matters. There are a lot of reasons an absentee ballot can be invalidated.  You need to be careful not to give them a reason. 

After the primary debacle, the state Board of Elections plans to use a red X or arrow to help people remember where to sign the affirmation letter they must mail with their ballots.  This is really a case where the admonition 'RTFM' (Read The F---ing Manual) is extremely important.  In a society where people are figuratively allergic to reading directions before using new devices or apps, or filling in forms, we're all going to have to fight our aversion to small print if we want our vote to count.

So if you are more concerned about the safety of your vote than the safety of your health, early or normal voting may be a better way to insure that your vote is counted.  That said, I am going to vote by mail, and I am simply going to pay close attention to the instructions and follow them to the letter.  Yep, I'm going to R that M! And I am going to mail my ballot early to make sure it arrives on time.  If you opt to mail in your ballot, you should, too.

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