Letter: Cooperstown vote reform

It seems like almost every day we hear about state legislatures across the country passing laws that make it harder to vote. Systemic voter suppression continues to degrade our democracy and the consequences of doing nothing will be felt by generations to come.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what we can do on a local level to improve the system of elections in our village. As a Village Trustee, I feel it’s my obligation to our citizens to be proactive and to propose innovative ideas.

Over the last few months, I’ve been working on proposed changes to our village charter to accommodate moving our village elections from March to November. That would mean our village elections would coincide with all of our other general elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
It has been documented time and time again, that increasing the number of times people have to vote decreases the chances of them showing up. By making this change, when folks go to vote for their President of the United States they’ll be able to vote for their Village Trustees as well.

If we pass my proposed changes to our village charter, it will go to our March 2022 village ballot and will require a majority vote by our residents. At a minimum our village voters should get a chance to say aye or nay on this legislation.

Moving our village elections from March to November will give voters six additional hours to vote on Election Day. Currently our village elections are conducted from noon until 9 p.m. In the new system voters would be able to cast a ballot on Election Day from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m.

In 2019, the New York State Legislature passed a law providing voters nine days of early voting. That means village voters would gain access to nine days of early voting at two different polling locations in Otsego County. This change saves taxpayer dollars and ends the administrative burden of facilitating elections on our village staff by handing over electoral operations to the Otsego County Board of Elections.

It will also enable our military and overseas voters to participate in our village elections, which is currently very difficult due to the tight timeline for absentee voting in village elections. Voters will no longer have to apply for separate absentee ballots for village elections.

Villages across NYS have already made this change and coincide their village elections with all other elections. I believe our village voters should enjoy the same access to the ballot they enjoy in every other election.

This idea, while not a new one, is a good one. Unfortunately my proposed local law to amend our village charter failed to pass at the January meeting of the Cooperstown Board of Trustees, and was tabled until February.

Some objections included extending our political season and increasing partisanship in our elections.
We currently operate in a system where major parties nominate candidates even at this very local level. Expanding access to the ballot won’t result in elections any more partisan than what we already have. I urge all village residents to share their thoughts on my proposal with my colleagues and with our Village Clerk by sending correspondence to jutter@cooperstownny.org.

MacGuire Benton
Cooperstown