How many times will your vote be counted?

Voting has often been described as a cherished right and a solemn duty. And it is both.

But that duty will be a great challenge this year because New York state residents will be asked to vote in no fewer than five separate elections — six if you live in an incorporated village.

Primary elections for president are on April 24. School board and budget votes are on May 15. We vote on June 26 in the primaries for U.S. Senate and House seats, and on Sept. 11 for State Senate and Assembly seats. And the general election is on Nov. 6. If you live in a village, you either had your local election last month or will have it in June.

Citizens dedicated to the principle of participatory democracy will no doubt take advantage of every opportunity to express their preferences. But the reality is that New York has some of the lowest voter turnout statistics in the nation, and all the elections this year will likely further reduce turnout.

In the 2008 presidential primaries, according to George Mason University’s United States Elections Project, only 1,891,143 New York Democrats — and only 670,078 Republicans — voted in their respective contests. That’s right, only 19.5 percent of about 14 million eligible voters turned out for party primaries for president.

In that year’s general election, New York state participation jumped to 59.6 percent of eligible voters. Which still means, of course, that 40 percent of people who could have had a say in the election of the president — and all the other offices on the ballot that year — chose not to.

In 2010, a non-presidential year, only 36.3 percent of eligible voters went to the polls.

We don’t need to have primaries on three different dates. When our state leaders couldn’t decide on a nonpartisan way to redistrict congressional, State Senate and Assembly lines after the 2010 census, and with deadlines approaching for military ballots to be created, mailed and returned in time to count in federal elections, judges had to intervene and decide for us what the new maps would be and when the congressional primaries would be held. The State Legislature had an opportunity to move the September state primary up to the June congressional date.