Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - A bill that could soon reach New York Governor Kathy Hochul's desk would shift the years for local elections, like mayor and county executive, from odd-numbered to even-numbered years.
"I think it's purely political," GOP strategist Carl Calabrese tells WBEN. "Democrats know that they do better in even number of years where they have a ticket leader of prominence, for example, that the governor is running, or the president is running ... and you tend to get voters out, that might not otherwise come out in local election years, because there's just not high profile races."
Calabrese says town boards and county legislatures form the Democrats' farm system. "Those are people who then can run for county executive or state senate or state assembly or Congress when those seats open up. So from a strategic standpoint, it's based on some pretty sound reasoning that they get, you get a bigger turnout in those years where you have premier races, high profile races, and it gives them a chance to reach down into the local level dominated by Republicans," adds Calabrese.
Calabrese speaks from experience. "We used to call it the once every four year Democrat, that there are Democrat voters who literally just come out once every four years and vote for the presidential race and, you know, go back into hibernation for three years," notes Calabrese, adding he lost to Democrats in special elections held in even-numbered years.
Ken Kruly of Politics and Stuff says the issue in favor of the bill is that it will increase turnout, because turnout in local elections is notoriously low. "The turnout in election years when there's a gubernatorial election, or a presidential election, brings out a substantially larger number of people to vote than in local elections where you're voting for local offices, town offices, county legislature, even countywide offices like county executive or county comptroller," says Kruly, who says the theory is to carry over that interest into the local races.
Kruly says while Democrats traditionally do better in even-numbered year elections, Republican turnout was higher than Democratic turnout in last year's governor's race.
Could Governor Hochul veto this bill? Calabrese says not a chance. "This governor is a partisan governor and expect that she has been in consultation with the legislative leadership," says Calabrese. Kruly says he would think there would be some benefit, even from a good government point of view for her to veto the bill. But Kruly notes, "I think that the choices are going to be cut down to more than just politics. It's a question of what the focus is on elections when you put officers in local cases, on the same ballot with a governor or president, the local officers are going to get less attention. And that's really not a good thing. They sometimes need their own day in the sun to bring issues to the light."
Legislators approved the bill late in this year's session.
