LITTLE VALLEY — New York state has developed a one-stop absentee ballot web portal where voters can request mail-in ballots no matter where they live.
Postcards are being mailed today to more than 45,000 Cattaraugus County voters notifying them of their voting options in the fall election, according to Election Commissioners Cortney Spittler and Kevin Burleson.
The mailing, required under a recent executive order from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will include voters’ poll sites, dates and places for early voting and how to request an absentee ballot, said Burleson, the Democratic commissioner.
Registered voters can apply for an absentee ballot simply and at the click of a computer mouse. The web portal is live at https:// www.elections.ny.gov/ VotingAbsentee.html.
Voters need only check a box on a new state website indicating they are requesting the absentee ballot due to their concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
The deadline to apply through both web portals is seven days before the general election (Oct. 27), but the post office has warned voters that they cannot guarantee delivery of absentee ballots applied for less than 15 days before the general election.
During the June Democratic Presidential Primary, about 3,300 absentee ballots were requested after the local Board of Elections sent 17,200 absentee ballot applications to Democrats and others involved in a primary in the county. There were 2,300 absentee ballots submitted to the board of elections, said Burleson.
Once a voter receives an absentee ballot they can return it by mail with a postmark of Nov. 3 or earlier, bring it to the Board of Elections on or before Nov. 3, bring it to an early voting site or bring it to a poll site by 9 p.m. on Election Day.
“I feel that we are doing everything possible here to prevent any fraud,” Spittler said. The staff checks signatures of absentee ballot envelopes as they come in. “We make sure no one votes twice.”
Burleson said the same absentee ballot provisions that existed in the June primary will be in effect for the November General Election.
The commissioners don’t know how many absentee ballots to expect in the election. It may depend on how safe people feel over the next month to six weeks. It is likely to be several times the 3,300 absentee ballots submitted during the primary.
Both commissioners urged people to apply for the absentee ballots early and either mail them in early or bring them to the Board of Elections office in Little Valley or to an early voting site.
Burleson said state elections officials want local Boards of Election to start counting the absentee ballots sooner. In the primary, they were counted two weeks after the election to make sure military ballots would be counted.
Burleson said additional staff — probably election inspectors – will be hired to speed up the county count.
In the first three days, there were 169 absentee requests through the state Board of Elections portal, Spittler said.
“You can still vote in person,” Burleson said.
Officials plan to follow the same protocols as they did for the primary. Face masks will be required along with social distancing. There will be frequent sanitizing and plenty of hand sanitizer on hand as well.
(Contact reporter Rick Miller at rmiller@oleantimesherald.com. Follow him on Twitter, @RMillerOTH)
