Voting 📍

🖼️ Photos 📽️ Videos
Map: Empire State Topography
Map: Galen Wildlife Management Area

Why I split the ticket multiple ways this year 🗳

|

I think it’s good to have different views on local government.

Both Democrats and Republicans have good ideas, it’s better if they come together in one room and work hand in hand to develop policies that benefit all Americans rather than their narrow ideological slices.

The veto pen after all is one of the best protectors of minority rights!

Gianaris on Republican concerns early voting by mail law

|

Gianaris on Republican concerns early voting by mail law

Before the ink was dry on a series of 10 election reforms signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday, Republicans – including U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik – filed a lawsuit arguing that one of the reforms, which expands the use of mail-in balloting during the early voting period “reverses the will of the people."

That’s a reference to a 2021 ballot question expanding absentee voting that voters defeated by a margin of 55-45%.

But according to bill sponsor state Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris , the bill in question, the so-called "Early Mail Voting Act," is distinct from the question on the ballot in 2021.

“We’re not expanding absentee voting. We’re allowing people to vote by mail during the early voting period,” Gianaris told Capital Tonight. “The Constitution is very clear that the Legislature gets to determine the methods of voting."

The absentee process deals with people who may be absent or unavailable to get to the polls on Election Day. The statute signed into law by Hochul relates to a method of early voting.

“What we’re saying is that, as a method of early voting, which we now have in this state, you can go show up at the polls on any of those given early days, or you can vote by mail if you choose to,” explained Gianaris.