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Vote November 8th. Check out our Absentee Voting Guide

You are eligible  to get an absentee ballot if you will be absent from your county on Election Day (for example if you are in school elsewhere). There are just some deadlines you will need to meet, so take action now. These instructions and dates are for voting in the November 8th General Election. 

Step One: Request a ballot online by Monday October 24th. It takes seconds. Here is the link https://absenteeballot.elections.ny.gov/  Remember to provide the address where you want the ballot sent, not your home address.

Step Two: Fill in your ballot and mail it back before November 8 (Election Day) 

  1. Notice that your ballot comes with two envelopes. There is an inner envelope (sometimes called an “oath envelope” or a “privacy envelope”). Then there is a postage-paid outer envelop addressed to the Board of Elections.
  2. Mark your choices on the ballot.
  3. Put your completed ballot into the INNER ENVELOPE. The inner envelope must be sealed (do not use tape or glue), signed, and dated accurately.
  4. Put the inner envelope into the outer envelope and send it back to the board of elections. It must be postmarked on or before election day, so you will want to put it in the mailbox by November 7. Good News—the postage is free.

If it turns out that you will be in your hometown on Election Day after all…No worries. Bring the ballot with you. You can drop off your absentee ballot in person at your local board of elections, at the early voting site, or at your regular polling place on election day.

Step Three: Congratulations, you did it! You should be proud of yourself for voting. 

 

Environmental Bond Issue on the Ballot-- don't forget to Vote (Yes)

 

On Election Day, voters across New York state will have the opportunity to show their support for the first environmental bond act on the ballot in more than 25 years. The Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Bond Act is a historic piece of legislation that, if passed, will fund critical environmental protection and restoration projects throughout the state.

The $4.2 billion proposal will support projects that:

  • Safeguard clean drinking water, preventing contamination and pollution
  • Update aging or failing water and sewer infrastructure
  • Reduce carbon pollution that causes climate change
  • Preserve forests, wetlands, and other wildlife habitats
  • Build renewable energy at public facilities
  • And more!

The Bond Act will help advance environmental justice and address inequities by directing 35 to 40 percent of total funding to disadvantaged communities.

 

Click here for information on the Environmental Bond Act

 Posted in General

Our New Congressional District: NY-24

In May, a judge finalized the NEW NY State Congressional districts. These replace districts that were established only a few months before but were ruled unconstitutional. 

Seneca County is now part of the new NY-24 CD. It stretches from Watertown to Batavia, and includes Auburn, Geneva, Canandaigua, Geneseo and Oswego. It does not contain the cities of Rochester, Syracuse, Ithaca or Buffalo. 

Our first election in this year. The Democratic candidate is Steven Holden. Check out his profile on our November 8 Election  page. He is running against Republican Claudia Tenney, who currently represents the (old) NY-22 district. Tenney is perhaps most notorious for her remark, in the wake of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, that " it’s interesting that so many of these people that commit the mass murders end up being Democrats." Tenney is a staunch opponent of gun safety measures. She has been endorsed by Trump, and has praised the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturning Roe vs. Wade. 

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Bi-Partisan Opposition to Cryptomining among Seneca County Supervisors

In a rare and welcome piece of bi-partisanship, the Seneca County Board of Supervisors has unanimously expressed opposition to crypt-currency mining on Seneca Lake.  Kyle Barnhard (D-Lodi) teamed up with one of his Republican colleagues to explain why in this Op-ed, published June 23, 2022 in the Democrat and Chronicle.

Governor Hochul, protecting the Finger Lakes' environment isn't partisan | Opinion

Kyle Barnhart and Paul Kronenwetter

Special to the USA TODAY Network

It’s no secret that Seneca County, like many of the counties in the Finger Lakes, is mostly rural and conservative. Democrats feel underrepresented in county legislatures that lean heavily Republican, while Republican lawmakers feel ignored by a Democratically-controlled state Legislature and nearly 20 years of Democratic governors. Like the rest of the country, we’ve got plenty to argue about, mostly on partisan lines. But here in Seneca County, there’s one issue that always unites us —protecting our lakes, our watersheds, and our environment.

Earlier this month, the Seneca County Board of Supervisors, made up of 13 Republicans and one Democrat, including the two of us, unanimously voted to urge Gov. Kathy Hochul to put a moratorium on environmentally-destructive cryptomining and deny Greenidge Generation’s air permits. We’re all for promoting local business and job growth, but there comes a point where the exploitation of our natural resources goes too far.

Greenidge Generation is located just across the lake from us in Seneca County. It’s a fossil fuel power plant that is permitted to produce power for the public grid in emergency situations, when demand for electricity is particularly high. But instead, it’s producing power 24/7/365 in order to run its 20,000-strong fleet of Bitcoin mining machines. Greenidge is polluting our air with climate change-accelerating greenhouse gases that could make it impossible to meet New York’s emissions reductions goals. It’s also threatening the health of Seneca Lake, an extremely valuable resource that provides clean drinking water to hundreds of thousands. Greenidge offers no practical benefit to the residents of Seneca County. Its inconsistency with the character of our communities, on top of the harm it’s causing our natural resources, is a threat to our thriving agritourism industry. That industry brings in $3 billion annually and employs 60,000 people. Greenidge’s supposed 48 jobs are only a drop in the bucket.

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Never Forget. Demand Action.

Murdered in Uvalde, TX on May 24, 2022

 

  Murdered in Buffalo, May 14, 2022

Roberta A. Drury,  32; Margus D. Morrison, 52; Andre Mackneil, 53;Aaron Salter, 55; Geraldine Talley, 62; Celestine Chaney, 65; Heyward Patterson, 67; Katherine Massey,72; Pearl Young, 77; Ruth Whitfield, 86

Unique Visits

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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American

September 9 , 2022

Today, President Joe Biden’s administration released an  “economic blueprint” to show how the new laws and policies it has put in place “are rebuilding an economy that works for working families.”

The Biden-Harris Economic Blueprint notes that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office in the midst of unprecedented crises, including “an economy that for many decades had been failing to deliver for working families—with workers and middle-class families left behind, stagnating wages and accelerating costs, crumbling infrastructure, U.S. manufacturing in decline, and persistent racial disparities.” In the past year and a half, it says, the Democrats have set the nation “on a new course,” investing in a historic economic recovery based on a long-term strategy to make lasting changes to the economy that will carry the nation into the future, making sure that no one is left behind.

The blueprint calls for empowering workers through unionization and new jobs; restoring the country’s manufacturing base by investing in infrastructure and clean energy; helping families by lowering costs and expanding access to affordable and high-quality health care, child care, education, housing, and so on; promoting industrial competition to open the way for entrepreneurs and bring down costs; and “rewarding work, not wealth,” by reforming taxation so that taxes do not go up on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year, and that the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.

This blueprint pulls together much of what Biden has been saying all along, and it is quite clear about what this means. What the blueprint calls “new architecture” must, it says, “replace the old regime.” The old system sent economic gains to the top while outsourcing industries, and the end of public investment hollowed out the middle class. The new system will drive “the economy from the bottom up and middle out” because that system “ensures that growth benefits everyone.” 

While Biden and Harris are focused on the economy and the future, the Department of Justice is still handling crises created by the former president.

Yesterday the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion to request a partial stay of Judge Aileen Cannon’s order last week, the one that said the DOJ couldn’t use the items the FBI seized when they searched the Trump property at Mar-a-Lago on August 8. 

The DOJ pointed out that the intelligence community’s assessment of the damage done to our national security is tied together with the ongoing criminal investigation. Because the FBI is central to both, the judge’s order has shut down the national security review, which is vitally important to the country.

“In plain English,” Vance writes, “DOJ is asking how the guy who took the classified nuclear secrets he wasn’t entitled to have is harmed if law enforcement gets to look at those materials to protect our national security.”

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You can read and subscribe to all of Heather Cox Richardson's daily newsletters here