BUFFALO (WBEN) - Monday marks the third day of the early voting period in New York prior to the June 23 Primary Election.
Early voting runs until Sunday, June 21, and the hours for Erie County polling sites are noon to 9 p.m. on weekdays and noon to 6 p.m. on weekends.
"Anyone in any area of Erie County can go to any one of the locations, so it's universal voting," said Republican Commissioner of the Erie County Board of Elections Ralph Mohr. "If you reside in a town but work in another town, you can stop in that other town on your way back from work and cast your ballot."
The Board of Elections reports 286 voters cast ballots on the second day of early voting for the Tuesday, June 23 primary and special elections. That brings the total of early voters to 658 based on an amended first-day figure of 372.
While the county has 37 sites set up, Democratic Commissioner Jeremy Zellner is still encouraging people to stay away from the polls if possible.
"We are still asking folks to try to vote absentee," said Zellner. "They can go to our website, elections.erie.gov, and apply in less than a minute.
"We've had an unprecedented response to our absentee operation here," Zellner continued. "We got nearly 100,000 people who have taken advantage of that, and that's five-times more than we've ever had, so we're happy that folks want to stay home."
However, if you are still interested in voting absentee, you have to act quickly.
"They can...register to absentee vote up until June 16," said Zellner. "They've got to either postmark their application, or they can apply online up to June 16."
For those who are heading to the polls, Zellner assures that sanitation and safety precautions are being exercised as much as possible.
"Voters should also feel safe that our inspectors will have masks; we're asking voters to wear masks for the polls," he said. "We have plenty of hand sanitizer; we're going to have people stay six feet apart; we've contracted with companies to keep our polling places clean during early voting and on election day, so we're trying to take as many precautions as we can."
