County executive should properly fund elections board, not criticize it (Your Letters)

To the Editor:
National news has been full of stories about an explosion in the number of citizens registering to vote, often for the first time. Our own Onondaga County Board of Elections is no exception. In order to make sure deadlines for mailing ballots were not missed, New York state had to send staff to Onondaga County to help process those registrations. With the additional staff, in three days it was done. Now our county executive is publicly chastising the BOE, and the Democratic Commissioner of Elections in particular, for requiring this help. I would like to provide context.
In the Fall of 2023, I represented District 7 on the county legislature. Budget hearings were being held to fund the county’s 2024 Budget. At that time, both Republican and Democratic commissioners, citing new state voting mandates, presidential year primaries and the general election, requested six additional staff. Their request was denied. Voting percentages during presidential years more than doubles, so they also requested additional funding for election inspectors and temporary staff. Their request was significantly reduced, with portions of the money placed in contingency until they demonstrated a need. Those monies are long gone.
In September 2023, syracuse.com published a letter from the leadership of the League of Women Voters urging that the BOE be fully funded: “The Onondaga County BOE for many years has been one of the shortest staffed and underfunded BOE’s in the state. In 2022 they operated on $10.34 per active registered voter, the second lowest of any county in New York state. At the same time they served…the sixth highest number of all New York state counties.”
And here we are. By the state sending in staff that the county executive and the Republican legislators refused to fund, the job got done. How is the BOE to be blamed? The budget submitted by the county executive for 2025 continued to short the BOE but the legislature provided some, but not all, the monies requested via a budget amendment.
In addition we now hear the county executive accusing the commissioner of shirking his duties by participating in the lawsuit, initiated by the Democratic Caucus of the legislature, challenging the gerrymandered redistricting maps. The BOE commissioners were, by charter, members of that redistricting commission. The rights of voters to pick their representatives by having fair maps drawn seems exactly a role for election commissioners. Perhaps McMahon is upset that the county, after having spent well over $200,000 taxpayer dollars, lost that suit. The judge has ordered that those maps be redrawn.
The county executive has shown an inclination to undercut the voting opportunities of the citizens of Onondaga County. He consistently resisted the full implementation of early voting. He engineered gerrymandered maps. He has initiated a lawsuit, again with taxpayer dollars, to stop local elections from occurring on presidential years when turnout is significantly higher. Taxpayers have a right to know the full story of how their money is being misused.
Mary Kuhn
DeWitt