It’s been a challenging winter for municipalities and their residents and businesses. Fortunately, patience and common sense have prevailed. No one even knew where to put all the snow that accumulated as parking, traffic, mobility, public transportation and our day-to-day lives were negatively impacted. It seemed like it would never melt!
As summer is sure to approach, we begin turning our attention to the November elections. New York state has changed its voting procedures, and what was supposed to make things easier has complicated things quite a bit for average registered voters. The state’s highest court upheld a law shifting local elections to even-numbered years, bringing most county and town elections in line with statewide and federal races.
Voting can already be confusing, with various voting districts that include villages, towns, fire and water districts, sanitary and library districts, and of course county, state and federal races. All of these offices are separate, and should be voted on in separate elections.
In November, we have to go back to the polls to vote for the offices that we just filled last November. Why should town and county officials be included with state and federal officials? They need to run their jurisdictions and, quite frankly, leave state and federal issues to those who were elected to make decisions in those areas. Sadly, what I think was overruled.
Lumping everything from village to federal elections together assumes the worst of the voting public. The rationale was to increase voter turnout. The result will be voters choosing their local elected officials based on things over which they have no control. I believe citizen voters are way smarter than that. Informed and educated voters know when and where to vote, and on the issues that are of utmost importance to them, not the politicians.
Most Valley Stream residents are familiar with the village’s elections for the board of trustees, the mayor and the village justice. Their terms are four years and are staggered; elections for mayor, two trustees and the village justice are held in the same year, and two more trustees are elected the following year. That’s it for our village. We don’t have any of those other unique districts — our trustees handle the library and fire departments. All villages in New York abide by varying versions of these unique rules, running their elections in spring or summer.
State election law established this timing. It dates back to 1874, and is primarily a product of the uniqueness of the roughly 550 incorporated villages in New York. It allows residents to scrutinize village issues without the interference of town, county, state and, most important, federal issues. When speaking to school students or civic groups, I always point out that it’s a mistake to mix state and federal issues with local village elections. Village issues are very different from other levels of government, and our forebears knew this when they wrote the law.
Valley Stream’s is the government closest to the people. We’re responsible for sanitation/garbage pick-up, village-owned streets, street lights, the fire department, library, parks and recreation programs, potholes, snow removal and recycling. For voters to turn out focused on federal issues, such as nuclear weapons, the national debt, articles of war or the military, immigration, national defense, civil rights and the economy would keep local community issues from being properly addressed.
Let’s face it: You don’t vote for the president to get your garbage picked up, and you shouldn’t vote for a mayor based on international diplomatic relations.
Fortunately, at least for now, village elections remain separate and unchanged. But our town and county elections have been relegated to even years to coincide with gubernatorial or presidential elections.
The State Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that legislation passed into law in 2023 was constitutional.
“We hold that there is no express or implied constitutional limitation on the legislature’s authority to enact the Even Year Election Law and therefore affirm,” the judges wrote in their 12-page decision. Many called it a “victory for democracy,” saying that it gives more New Yorkers the “opportunity to make their voices heard …and make it easier to vote.”
Again, in my opinion, it implies that voters aren’t smart enough to know when and how to vote. That’s ridiculous. When something is important to you, you vote in your best interest, every time, not just on even years.
Ed Fare is the mayor of Valley Stream.
