By-mail ballots a hassle for schools

Amid pandemic, districts try to find the best way to reach voters

School districts offering their annual budgets and board seats to voters are in unchartered territory and they’ve been forced to make their own paths to handle thousands of absentee ballots by mail.

Polling places are out this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, upending the normal mid-may election day scenario. Some districts are mailing ballots to every registered voter. Others are compiling absentee voter lists from their poll books that tally everyone who has voted in recent school elections.

How successful they will be will be be measured June 9, the day the ballots are due back to the districts -- the first full-scale voting in the state since the outbreak began. School vote turnout is normally very light, traditionally averaging between 10 and 15 percent across the Capital Region’s 40 or so public school systems.

North Colonie Superintendent D. Joseph Corr said the suburban school district searched its poll records from the last five years to compile a list of 7,000 voters who will receive absentee ballots. Typically the district sees 1,700 to 1,800 voters show up at the polls.

Corr said the situation is unprecedented and the district is navigating a difficult route.

Due to the way the North Colonie and South Colonie boundaries cut across the town through districts used in the general and primary elections, the district’s choice to burrow into its poll records was the best way to put together an accurate voting list, Corr said.

The Cohoes City School District relies on the list of registered voters from the Albany County Board of Elections. That means 9,500 absentee ballots were mailed out for an election that typically draws about 1,000 voters.

“We have opened our voting to all registered voters. It’s the right thing to do,” Superintendent Jennifer Spring said. Mailing ballots to everyone means districts can’t rely on past turnout records to predict the outcome. “It’s a risk,” Spring said.

The Albany City Board of Education wanted to ensure that every city resident registered to vote would get the chance and not be disenfranchised, said Ron Lesko, district spokesman. The district mailed 47,000 ballots for an election for the school budget, board seats and the Albany Public Library. Those elections generally draw about 3,000 voters.

“We expect more votes,” Lesko said about turnout.

School officials say districts are facing added expenses associated with the mail-in elections, since as they are required to send out three mailings ahead of the election instead of one and must cover the cost of a return stamp. In Albany, last year’s vote cost the district $36,400, plus $7,000 to mail the annual budget newsletter and budget postcard to all city residents. This year’s mailonly vote will cost about $150,000, plus $32,000 to mail the budget newsletter and postcard.

Because of the condensed timeline leading up to the June 9 voting deadline and anticipated mail delays, the district is choosing to send mail first-class to ensure on-time arrival.

The Schenectady City School District had planned to use the poll records from last year’s budget vote, then decided to go with the voter registration lists compiled by the Schenectady County Board of Elections, said Karen Corona, a district spokeswoman. That meant sending 31,000 absentee ballots out. “We want to see everyone get the opportunity to vote.”

The East Greenbush School District also has

decided to send ballots to all registered voters for a total of 22,000.

Clifton Park attorney Robert Rybak said that he doesn’t think any district in the state can fully comply with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s executive order to reach all eligible voters because districts don’t maintain a list. However, he thinks some districts are doing a better job than others.

Rybak likes that the Bethlehem and North Colonie school districts are going back to who voted over multiple years – that’s six for Bethlehem and five for North Colonie — to fill out their eligible voter rolls.

Bethlehem has published its poll list of 4,400 voters on its website so residents can check to see if they will receive a ballot or have to request one from the district.

But Ryback is disappointed with his own school system, Shenendehowa, which is only looking back two years.

“The district is making a good faith effort,” Rybak said. “But they are clearly not reaching every eligible voter just by the way they are doing it.”

Rybak estimates there are 40,000 eligible voters in Shen. Yet the district is only sending out 25,000 ballots. He thinks the district should go back at least three years to December 2017 when the district had a huge turnout for its land sale referendum. He thinks it’s all about the money, which the district says is already costing it four times the normal amount for an election — nearly $100,000.

Spokeswoman Kelly Defeciani said the district, which is sending a ballot to all taxpayers, those who live in the 12065 Zip code along with the past two years of voters, understands that its method will not capture every eligible voter. Thus, the district has a form that voters can fill out to receive an absentee ballot. So far, the district has received 1,457 requests from eligible voters who filled out the form on the district’s website and social media pages.

“We also mailed a postcard last week to our standard mailing list for the annually required budget notice telling people how to get a ballot,” Defeciani said.

“This is an extremely difficult cost for districts to absorb in order to comply with the governor’s executive order at the same time we are planning to make budget cuts because of the state’s fiscal crisis.”

Districts in Ballston

Spa and Saratoga Springs are not tracking down all eligible voters. They have decided to only send ballots to registered voters. In Ballston Spa, that totals 22,000 absentee ballots for a vote that generally brings in 2,000 to 3,000 voters.

In Saratoga Springs, where the district will send out 35,100 ballots for an election that typically brings in about 3,000 to 6,000 voters, the district recommends residents register to vote. The district supplied a link to register online with the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Galway, a small district that brings in about a few hundred voters each year, is attempting to reach all eligible voters with its mailing list of 4,904. Superintendent Brita Donovan said the district hired NTS Data Services to determine who is eligible to vote.

“It is important that everyone in our community has a voice on our school budget,” Donovan said.

Mohonasen Superintendent Shannon Shine said the district is sending ballots to 6,100 residents who voted in the last five elections and has sent postcards to 10,000 district residents letting them know how to request one.

At $2.40 per ballot for printing and paper and 50 cents for postage, “it can add up quickly,” Shine said. “It was certainly not a budgeted expense.”

Shine said he fears frustrated voters would use the absentee ballots to take out their stress on the district, making it more difficult to get the budget approved.

The New York Civil Liberties Union said the lack of uniform requirements for each district to make sure voters aren’t disenfranchised is troubling. The pandemic has cast a light on the issues that exist in school elections. Sending absentee ballots for this election only to voters who have voted previously is not right, said Perry Grossman, senior staff attorney for the Voting Rights Project of the NYCLU.

“It’s everybody’s right to vote. The problem is you don’t lose your right to vote because you didn’t vote for a few elections,” Grossman said.

Grossman pointed out that the executive order for the conduct of the school district elections is unclear.

The New York State School Boards Association also found the executive order difficult to interpret. The association said various school boards are relying on the legal guidance from their school attorneys to decide how to proceed with the election.

The Hoosick Falls School District said on its website that it’s mailing one ballot to each household. If there’s more than one voter, then a request for additional ballots has to be made to the district.

The Waterford-halfmoon Union Free School District has mailed out 3,700 ballots for an election that if held in normal times would attract 155 voters, said Superintendent Patrick Pomerville. “We want to give the best opportunity to all voters to vote.”

The Watervliet City School District usually sees 250 voters for a school budget vote and election. The district mailed out 20 times that many ballots — 5,000 in total — said Superintendent Lori Caplan, describing the state executive order as an expense the district had to bear without any state aid.

“I hope the voters understand we’re proposing a very fair budget respecting both the programs for the students and the taxpayers who support it,” Caplan said.

The Burnt Hills-ballston Lake district had planned to have absentee ballots sent out to qualified voters early, but it was informed on Friday by NTS Data, the state-wide vendor it was using to print, label and mail the forms, that there was a delay in delivering ballot packets due to a shortage of envelopes. The vendor likened it to shortages of toilet paper and hand sanitizer when the COVID-19 pandemic first began, district spokeswoman Tara Mitchell said.

The district is working the Schenectady County Board of Elections to get the ballots out express mail so that voters will receive them in time for the vote.

Voters who do not receive an absentee ballot because they reside in a district that is using its poll records and they haven’t voted before in a school district or have moved into a district at least 30 days ago may contact their school district to obtain an absentee ballot.

They usually must be a qualified voter which is defined as being at least 18-years-old, an American citizen and a district resident for at least 30 days. Each district posts the requirements and the procedure for obtaining an absentee ballot on its website.

Cuomo’s executive order also softened the requirements for candidates running for the school board. This year, they do not have to be nominated by voters through the collection of 50 to 100 signatures. Any qualified voter may selfdeclare.

Some feared that with minimal requirements, the districts would be overwhelmed with candidates, but in most cases, those concerns were not borne out, according to analysis from NYSSBA.

Shenendehowa, where seven candidates are challenging two incumbents, is one district that is seeing more competitive elections.

Tom Templeton, a mental health counselor in private practice running for the first time, said he had already collected 50 signatures before the order went into effect. He said he is worried the cancellation of the usual public forums will set him at a disadvantage. Instead, Templeton said, he will have to rely on word-ofmouth, social media and his roots in the region to raise his profile.

“Vulnerable people can’t be standing in line, but I do think it will affect turnout,” he said.

Other candidates, with information provided on the district’s website, are: Gusta Miller, of Clifton Park, seeking her second term. She formerly had a psychotherapy practice in Manhattan. She has a bachelor’s degree and a Masters of Social Work from New York University as well as post-graduate work at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. She and her spouse have two children who attend Shenendehowa. Brian Kissel is seeking his first term. A local business owner, he attended Rochester School of Technology and the Academy of Art College. He and his spouse live in Rexford.

Naomi Hoffman, of Clifton Park, is seeking her second term. She is a retired manager of compliance and audit of Kitware, a local R&D software technology company. She has a bachelor’s degree in accounting and an MBA, both from SUNY Albany. She and her spouse have two children, one currently attends Shenendehowa and the other is a Shen graduate.

Lacey Griffin-braaf, of Clifton Park, is seeking her first term. She is employed as a health program administrator for the state Department of Health — AIDS Institute Family and Youth Services. She has a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Albany in sociology. She and her spouse have three children who attend Shenendehowa.

Jennyfer Gleason, of Clifton Park, is seeking her first term. She is employed as a legislative aide and lobbyist at the state Thruway Authority — Legal Department. She has a bachelor’s degree from John Carroll University in political science. She has two children who attend Shenendehowa.

Darryl Giannetti, of Clifton Park, is seeking his first term. He is a retired sales manager at Oak Mitsui. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in industrial engineering and a master’s degree from Georgia Tech in Industrial Management. He and his spouse have three children who graduated from Shenendehowa.