Distant polling places discourage voter participation

To the Editor:

For all but two elections over the past 40 years I have voted at the Wyman Osterhout Community Center in New Salem (District 1).  It has been a convenient polling place location involving travel one mile from my home to Route 85 and one mile up Route 85 to New Salem.

Some years back, the Albany County Board of Elections notified area residents that we would now vote in Clarksville at the Onesquethaw firehouse.  There was quite an outcry by folks objecting to the increased travel distance and our polling place was relocated back to New Salem.

Apparently, in 2015 the board of elections was instructed by court order to develop a remedial plan for election districts.

Then, about one year ago, voters in this area were notified that we had been reassigned to District 2 and would now be voting in Clarksville. The board of elections indicated that our voting at the Wyman Osterhout Community Center in 2015, 2016, and 2017 had been in error.

It was explained that errors had been made in transferring street addresses to new maps and because there are dates within which the configuration of election districts must take place, further changes in assigned polling locations cannot be made until Dec. 1, 2020, after the census.

The upshot is that many New Scotland residents who live quite close to the Wyman Osterhout Community Center can no longer vote there. Instead of traveling from less than a mile to four miles round trip, to vote we must drive on winding, hilly, tertiary roads to Clarksville and back, a round trip of approximately 10 to 14 miles depending on the location of our homes.

Such a drive becomes especially problematic in bad weather or the dark. Voters in our area must now have a car or access to a ride to vote.

A funny thing happened on the way to vote: The cruel irony to the redistricting decision is that the board of election’s directions for driving to the new District 2 polling place location in Clarksville have us drive either very close to or right by the convenient and uncrowded District 1 polling place in New Salem.  This is nuts.

The comments I hear frequently from my neighbors are, “Why are they doing this? Are they trying to reduce voter participation?”

As it pertains to the Helderhill Road neighborhood and the New Salem South Road area, the current redistricting plan does seem poorly considered and ignores two significant elements.

The first is that nearby locations for polling places provide both easy access to voting locations and implicitly encourage voter participation. The more difficult polling place access becomes, the less likely voters are to vote.

To make it more difficult to vote falls somewhere on the continuum of voter suppression. People living close to the New Salem District 1 polling place should be allowed to vote there. Route 85 is the main travel corridor for folks at this end of town. It is easy and safe to travel on Route 85 — and much quicker than taking back roads over to Clarksville.

The second element that the board of elections seems to ignore is that there are natural traffic/travel patterns. Smart districting takes into consideration not only geography but also topography and natural travel patterns.

In this region of the town of New Scotland, there is a Route 85 travel corridor and there is also a Route 443 travel corridor.  In-between routes 85 and 443 lies hilly land and relatively infrequently traveled tertiary connecting roads. People living on the Route 85 travel corridor should be allowed to vote where there is easy access — in our case, in New Salem at the District 1 polling place.

Starting with this November’s election, the Albany County Board of Elections advises me that early voting for our area will take place at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church at 85 Elm Ave. It is wonderful to have an early voting option, although it should be noted that taking advantage of this option will require more than 15 miles of round trip travel.

Additionally, while the new election law permits an extended use of absentee ballots, this should not give license to staying with badly crafted polling-place assignments. Also, if my recollection is correct, there was a problem with Albany County misplacing absentee ballots in 2017. I certainly prefer casting my vote at a designated polling place.

My neighbors and I have been in touch with our county legislator, our town supervisor, the town board and the Albany County Board of Elections. A formal complaint was lodged with the board of elections although that received no direct response.

It is unclear to me who oversees the board of elections. There must be some sort of accountability, but I have yet to determine how that would take place.

It has been quite frustrating to find that no avenue to try to remedy our situation is the right one and that after all of its missteps the Albany County Board of Elections’ hands are tied until December 2020.

Most recently, I have been in touch with Assembymember Patricia Fahy’s office. They understand our concerns but are unable to offer assistance with reassignment of our voting district. They were, however, quite interested in my observation that voters in our situation have no clear way to proceed should they have a complaint or problem with voting access or district assignment.

They agreed that developing some sort of centralized entity to hear voter concerns and complaints as well as clearly defined procedures for voicing those concerns and seeking remediation of them would be a good idea. Assemblymember Fahy’s office will discuss how they might proceed toward making that a reality.

One final observation: Voting is a right that we all enjoy. But, it does not come free. There are costs associated with staffing boards of elections and polling places as well as purchasing and maintaining equipment.

This is especially true with computerized voting machines, which will require maintenance, security and the periodic replacement of obsolete machines. We need to provide adequate funding for these services.

Erica M. Sufrin

New Scotland

Editor’s note: A 2018 email from Albany County Board of Elections Democratic Commissioner Matthew Clyne to the town of New Scotland confirmed that Erica Sufrin and her neighbors should have started voting in Clarksville in 2015 but the switch was delayed “because the streets in the Vly Creek vicinity were not manually entered into the proper district” until 2018. Clyne said this week that the mechanism for voters to file a complaint or report a problem is to directly call the Albany County Board of Elections.

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