To stem the spread of COVID-19, Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered that school district and library votes — for budgets and candidates — this year be pushed from the third Tuesday in May to June 9, and that voting be conducted by mail instead of through traditional polling booths.

All three districts covered by The Enterprise are providing drop boxes for ballots as well. Ballots have to be returned to the schools, not just postmarked, by 5 p.m. on June 9 to be counted.

BKW

Drop boxes for Berne-Knox-Westerlo voters will be operational on Thursday, June 4, the district’s media handler, Cuyle Rockwell, wrote in a statement on Tuesday. 

BKW voters will receive their ballots in the mail for voting on a $23.4 million budget, a $489,000 bus-replacement proposition, authorization for the superintendent to move $90,000 into the budget’s new Repair Reserve fund, and two school board incumbents seeking re-election to two open seats.

On Monday, Superintendent Timothy Mundell announced that the company with which the school district had contracted to distribute the ballots, NTS Data Services, won’t be able to mail all its ballots out to voters until June 3 because of an envelope shortage, leaving district residents little time to send the ballots back to the school through the post office. 

A representative from NTS Data Services could not immediately be reached for comment.

BKW’s two dropboxes will be installed on the school property, Rockwell said. One will be stationed at the main entry to the secondary school, and the other will be at the entrance to the business office. He added that the boxes will be monitored by security cameras, and that the district clerk, Anne Farnam, will retrieve and scan the ballots daily.

Voorheesville

Residents of the Voorheesville Central School District who have not received a ballot by June 5, and believe they should have, are to contact the district clerk at 518-765-3313 Ext. 101, or jtabakian@voorheesville.org.

Ballots include a postage-paid envelope for voters to return them by mail.

District residents will be voting on a $26 million school budget, $236,000 three bus proposition, and will choose among four candidates for three seats on the school board. They will also be voting on a $1.35 million library budget and will choose one of two candidates for library trustee.

The district will have a drop box in front of Voorheesville Middle School at 432 New Salem Road on Monday, June 8, and Tuesday, June 9, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., for in-person drop off.

Guilderland

Guilderland Central School District residents will be voting on a $103,032,695 spending plan and a $983,000 proposition to buy eight school buses. Among five school board candidates, they will choose three for three-year terms with the others receiving shorter terms.

They will also vote on a $4,038,583 public library budget and choose three candidates among five running for library trustee.

The district’s 25,000 registered voters will be receiving ballots for both the school and library elections with a return envelope.

Voters who want to drop off their ballots will push a buzzer to be admitted to a locked vestibule at the district’s office at the back of the high school on school road in Guilderland Center. There, they can drop their ballot in a secure box between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays through June 9.

— Noah Zweifel wrote about BKW, Sean Mulkerrin about Voorheesville, and Melissa Hale-Spencer about Guilderland