Relates to a board of registration for special town elections

Each board of registration must have two to four members who are all required to be compensated. Thus, towns will stand to save thousands of dollars if designating one board of registration rather than many.

This mandated expense can effectively make it prohibitive for towns to offer absentee ballots and multiple polling places. In order to avoid this mandate, many towns instead choose to not offer personal registra- tion, which in turn means absentee ballots are not offered - discourag- ing voter participation in special town elections.

Summary of provisions

Section one amends Town Law, Section 84 subdivision 3 to allow one or more boards of registration to be convened for the entire town in the case of town special elections in which personal voter registration is offered. Current law mandates the designation of boards of registration for each of the town's individual polling sites in such elections. Towns that desire to continue the current practice will be allowed to do so.

Section two is the effective date.

Justification

Towns hold special elections throughout the calendar year which require voter approval for various things, such as the sale of town property(under Town Law, § 64 (2)) or the withdrawal of funds from a capital reserve fund (under General Municipal Law, § 6-c). Towns are also often required to hold special elections in response to a citizen- initiated petition, as was the case in 2014 in both the towns of North Castle and Ramapo, among others. Currently, in accordance with article 6 of the town law as well as the state election law, towns must offer personal registration for purposes of voting if they want to allow absentee ballots in special town elections.

However, the procedure to offer personal voter registration for special town elections can be prohibitively expensive and administratively cumbersome. That procedure requires that the town board designate a

board of registration for each individual polling site, which must have between two and four members who are all required to be compensated by law (Town Law, § 84(3)).

To ease the financial burden on towns that offer absentee ballots in special elections, this legislation allows one or more boards of regis- tration to be convened for the entire town, offering an alternative to current law, which mandates the designation of boards of registration for each of the town's polling sites.

Election inspectors are typically paid $200 per day. If a town has 15 polling sites for a special election, with 3 board members at each site, the State of New York currently mandates that taxpayers are responsible for this expense in this case, $9,000 per day. Then there are additional expenses such as mailing notices, rental fees and insurance fees that add to the cost of having a board of registration for multiple polling sites. In contrast, this legislation would allow the town to instead designate just one board of registration at a cost of $600 per day, saving the town $8,400 per day in state mandates.

This expense of convening a board of registration for each individual polling site results in towns offering fewer polling sites, or altogeth- er foregoing personal registration - and therefore absentee ballots - in their special election. Allowing towns to instead designate just one board or more boards of registration - as this legislation proposes will save taxpayers money by offering an alternative loan unnecessary state mandate. Towns should have the opportunity to organize special elections according to their own needs.

Fiscal implications to the state

None.

Fiscal implications to local governments

Allows towns to save thousands of dollars each time they have to conduct a special election.

Impact on regulation of businesses and individuals

None

Effect on fines, terms of imprisonment or other sanctions

None

Legislative history

New bill

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately.