Amid statewide protest over New York’s closed primary rules, the policy proved to be a headache for some Syracuse University students and city election officials on Tuesday.

At Ed Smith Elementary School — a polling place just off SU’s campus — a number of students were told to fill out affidavit ballots. These ballots are given to voters who don’t show up as being registered at a certain polling place and allow them to explain why their vote should be counted.

Students whose address was in Lyons Hall or on Euclid Avenue, Livingston Avenue and other off-campus sites were able to vote at Ed Smith.

Votes cast via affidavit ballots aren’t guaranteed to count because it’s up to the discretion of the Board of Elections, and is often decided on a case by case basis, said Dustin Czarny, Democratic elections commissioner for the Onondaga County Board of Elections.

A few of the SU students who were handed an affidavit ballot were either independents or found that their registration information had fallen through the cracks somehow, said Lindsay Groves, a poll watcher at the elementary school. By 7:50 p.m., she said 17 affidavit ballots had been collected, but not all of them were confirmed to be cast by SU students.

Voters can only participate in New York state’s primary unless they’re a registered Democrat or Republican. A number of students showed up to the poll not knowing they had to be registered with a party by Oct. 9, 2015, Groves said in an email.

A national voting rights organization filed a lawsuit in New York Federal District Court today alleging that many New York voters’ registration information had changed without their knowledge, according to USA Today. The lawsuit also argued that unaffiliated voters should be allowed to participate in the election. A federal judge later denied the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon.

Czarny said he noticed a large push on social media for unaffiliated voters to go out to the polls and vote using affidavit ballots. On one hand, he said it shows enthusiasm from people who might not have voted in the past, but they also don’t seem to know the election rules.

He said the Board of Elections dealt with a lot of unaffiliated voters and affidavit ballots throughout the day, which proved to be difficult. Some of them chose to come down to the office and file a court order to have their vote be counted.

“That thing has really been our day,” Czarny said. “It’s frustrating because we have a brisk amount of court orders.”

A spokesman for the state Board of Elections projected that many independent voters could try to vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) using affidavit ballots, “causing long lines and waits at poll sites,” according to an April 13 New York Post article. The article also noted that about one-third of non-major party voters are millennials, which is also a “major constituency” for Sanders.

Czarny said he couldn’t say whether the influx of affidavit voters in Onondaga County were specifically Sanders supporters. Representatives from Syracuse for Sanders were not immediately available for comment.

As of 5:30 p.m., Election Inspector Kathleen Sauro said about 300 Democratic votes were cast, compared to 37 Republican votes.

Jin Zhang, a recent SU graduate, said he tried to register to vote in the primary and realized too late that he was listed as unaffiliated. He tried to vote using an affidavit ballot on Tuesday, but was told he could only fill it out if he was a registered Democrat. With no other option, Zhang left Ed Smith empty-handed.

“It was pretty confusing — the whole thing,” Zhang said. “… I wish I could have voted today.”

Published on April 19, 2016 at 11:32 pm

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