The right to vote doesn’t always guarantee the ability to easily vote, particularly in communities where lengthy wait times and inaccessible polling places act as barriers to casting a ballot. Onondaga County has taken an important step towards reducing the barrier of wait times by upgrading their voter check-in system, forgoing the bulky binders of the past for iPads, a faster and more user-friendly approach.

Voting has been a central pillar of American politics and government since the nation’s founding. The American experiment distinguished itself from its international competitors with its (mostly) Democratic system. Despite originally excluding marginalized identities the ability to vote, America has progressively worked to expand voting access.

Inaccessible polling conditions are an issue all around the nation. The 2018 midterm elections left hundreds of citizens waiting in hours-long lines in order to cast a ballot. Polling places have a national reputation for inefficiency, and with that reputation comes a significant population of eligible voters who simply opt-out of voting.

When the voting process becomes too time consuming or frustrating, it discourages voters from participating in it again. Conversely, a positive experience at the polls can encourage voters to return during the next election.

Dustin Czarny is a Commissioner of the Onondaga County Board of Elections, the Democratic half of the Board’s bipartisan leadership. Czarny played an important role in passing and implementing the policy.

“The quicker somebody can check-in, get their ballot, and vote, and leave, the more likely they’re going to repeat that experience,” said Czarny.

Whether intentional or not, long wait times at polling places serve as a form of voter suppression, usually impacting families and low-income people most significantly. Substantial waits can deter people from coming to the polls, or even force them to leave before casting their ballot.

For workers with hourly wages, there is a tangible cost to all of the time spent waiting at the polls. This means low-income individuals are often most harmed by lengthy wait times at polling places since the costs of leaving work, booking additional child care, and accessing transportation can be cost-prohibitive.

Others may have only a lunch break to cast their vote or a short gap between leaving the office and picking the kids up from soccer practice. Being busy shouldn’t force someone to forfeit their right to vote

Another concern of opting for a high-tech check-in system is cybersecurity. While concerns around election-related hacking have been abundant, particularly since the 2016 Presidential Election.

Czarny says the county ensured that upgrading didn’t mean compromising safety.

“How we deal with security in general at the Board of Election is that our voting machines are not connected to the internet, and polls are always manually programmed, so there’s no way for an outside hack.”

Projects like these can have significant upfront costs. It cost Onondaga County $750,000 to upgrade their voter check-in system, though the purchase was covered by a state grant. While the upfront price tag may look steep, the investment is well worth it. Printing the hard-copy voter rolls can cost up to $30,000 a year, and training and paying volunteers to facilitate check-in can cost $20,000 or more. By investing in a high tech approach, those costs go down, allowing the iPads to eventually pay for themselves. But the bigger investment is in the residents of Syracuse.

“We live in a very busy time,” said Czarny.  “We have a lot of demands on people’s time. Single parents, people who work two jobs, people who work shifts, people who have childcare needs, they don’t have a lot of time to be sitting in line for hours to vote, and often they decide not to because of that.”

By streamlining the voting process Onondaga County makes it clear that they prioritize citizens.  Providing the community with the best possible tools to participate in their own political system is of the utmost importance of preserving the American fundamental right of voting.

Sydney Gold is a freshman policy studies and public relations major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at [email protected]. She can be followed on Twitter @Sydney_Eden.

Published on January 26, 2020 at 9:08 pm