Curran blasts efforts to change local elections

Assemblyman Brian Curran reacted to the Assembly Democrats passing A.4282-B, which would move county and town elections to even-numbered years and put them on the same ballot with presidential, federal, and state elections.

According to a release from Curran’s office, this bill was “nothing short of an unconstitutional political power grab by New York City and Albany Democrats who want to dictate and engineer the election procedures of Nassau and Suffolk counties.”

“Similar to Gov. Hochul’s disastrous New York Housing Compact, the New York City and Albany Democrats want to take the power of determining when local elections should be held from suburban and rural voters and put it in their hands.”

By passing this legislation, the Democrats argue voter turnout will be higher for these local elections and will save localities money. However, according to Curran, neither is true. Curran noted that the legislation still mandates oddyear elections for county clerks, district attorneys, and numerous judges and as a result, there will be no cost savings.

Curran believes that there are legitimate concerns that passage of this legislation will increase the cost of elections based on ballot size, ballot machines and Board of Elections staff- ing levels. Additionally, he believes that voter turnout in the state will not be increased because all cities, which have lower voter turnouts than suburban and rural counties, are exempted from the legislation and will still hold their elections in odd-numbered years; the lowest voter turnout elections for villages, school districts and fire districts are not included in the bill; this legislation will erode voter turnout in the elections that remain in odd-numbered years with fewer contests; ballot drop-off, which occurs in every election where a percentage of voters choose not to vote in down-ballot races, will offset some or all of the voter increase seen by moving the races to even years.

According to Curran, Democrats are intruding on local home rule, which is recognized in the New York state constitution. He continued to explain that exempting from the legislation the very cities they control, the Democrats’ motivation is clear, to change the years of local elections in Nassau and Suffolk counties so they have a better chance to win elections they have been unable to win before.

“The Democrats will say and, more importantly, do anything to win elections. Nassau and Suffolk counties are two areas Democrats have not won recently,” Curran said. “By moving the election dates in these targeted areas, Democrats believe they have a better chance of winning with higher historical voter turnout in even-numbered years. This has nothing to do with helping localities or helping democracy. It is all politics, and I look forward to seeing it challenged in court if enacted.”

— Ben Fiebert

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