‘Tis not just the season for fun-fueled fright and fear-inducing festivities. Looking past Halloween and ahead to next month on the calendar, is already high time to show your voice matters in good times and bad, and can certainly make a difference if you allow it to, as early voting has begun at a polling site near you.
Offered annually for those who cannot make it to the polls on the first Tuesday of November and wish not to mail in their selections, eligible voters have plenty of sites to pick from when completing their right of action constitutionally afforded their way when they turned 18.
In 2024, a presidential election year that pits sitting Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump against one another on the Democratic and Republican tickets, respectively, the opportunity to vote ahead of the madhouse melee of minced words, or worse, that will be November 5th could therefore never be more prescient.
Thus, dropping by any local polling location over a stress-filled weekend in New York for sports fans, with the Yankees falling 2 games to 0 to Los Angeles in the World Championship, and the Jets falling to 2-6 on the season to the Brady and Belichick-less Patriots, actually produced one pleasant, and paranoia-free sight.
No campaigning was detected outside well-organized systems at both the H. Lee Dennison Bldg in Hauppauge and Brookhaven Town Hall in Farmingdale. Here and elsewhere, Long Island-residing Americans from all walks of life—some with their children in tow—filed in cohesion fashion and exited just as cordially, surely relieved to know that regardless of where the results swing down-ballet, they can always say they put forth their best foot; that those who vote recognize their ability to make an impact, and redeem it.
The politically impassioned have revved up their strategies in convincing “undecided's” or “indifferent's” that getting involved is integral to preserving the integrally beautiful fabric of our great nation. With the fate of the nation hanging in the balance from the to-be-determined top staring down, it is equally wise for one to do their homework regarding the candidates on the local front who do not earn as much press; to not head into the polls blind or with blinders is one in a litany of key components that help keep the spirit of healthy voting alive.
In Hauppauge, one Hispanic-American Smithtown resident in her 50s who wished to remain anonymous spoke with The South Shore Press about her decision to vote on Sunday, as opposed to Election Day.
“We usually vote on the same day, but we have a trip coming—we have a wedding to attend in Texas. We went to the website—and saw it on the news—that we could early vote,” she said.
Though more-or-less satisfied with the experience—proudly sporting her “I Voted” sticker on her shirt afterward, she did have suggestions for those coordinating early voting efforts on how to improve their operations. “You know, I think they need a bigger room for next time; it was a little tight,” she said. “I think it was a little loud.”
As this was the closest site to their Smithtown stomping grounds, the woman and her husband elected the Hauppauge site for their election participation this year. The latter noted in conversation that one thing they could not complain about:the amount of potential polling sites at their disposal when weighing when to vote early, and where.
In Suffolk County, these sites are:
The North Amityville Fire Department, the North Babylon Fire Department, the Wyandanch Public Library, the Greenlawn Fire Department, the Huntington Library Station Branch, the Dix Hills Fire Department, Nesconset Elementary School, Kings Park High School, the H. Lee Dennison Bldg (Hauppauge), St. Anne’s Hall (Formerly Knights of Columbus in Brentwood), Islip Town Hall Annex, the West Islip Senior Center, Greenbelt Recreation Center, the Connetquot Public Library, the Rose Caracappa Senior Center, the South Country Ambulance, Bayport-Blue Point Public Library, the Suffolk Board of Elections (Yaphank), the Robert Reid Recreation Center (Shoreham), Brookhaven Town Hall (Farmingville), the Mastic Volunteer Ambulance, Manorville Fire Department, Windmill Village (East Hampton), the Shelter Island Youth Recreation Center, SUNY Stony Brook Southampton (Gym), St. mark’s Episcopal Church (Westhampton), the Southold Town Recreation Center (Peconic), and Riverhead Town Hall
Saturday through Monday, October 26-28, voting hours were 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Up until Election Day, the remaining voting hours each day are as follows:
Tuesday, October 29: 7 a.m - 3 p.m.
Wednesday, October 30: 7 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Thursday, October 31 - 12 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Friday, November 1 - 12 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Saturday, November 2 - 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sunday, November 3 - 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Traditional booths populate each stopgap. However, moving forward, the county has allocated $35 million to technologically advanced replacements in an effort to maintain voting integrity, Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine promised.
On paper, touch-screen capabilities scans as a bill of goods marketed to be pretty effective; but, in practice, it has only led to horror thus far, as our neighbors in the Garden State have learned all too well.
In New Jersey, Congressional Candidate Darius Mayfield saw his district’s Dominion voting machines shut down before the voting even began. “I don’t know what the final vote was because they couldn’t even count the ballots in Mercer County,” Mayfield said of his 2022 campaign.
He was up against Bonnie Watson Coleman in the 12th District, the House’s most Progressive representative. He’s running again, and lawsuits are pending to stop the cheating this time around, and more poll watchers in an election Mayfield said he would easily win if it were free and fair. “Even though they shut the machines down, l came the closest to beating the incumbent in her 33-year career.”
In Suffolk, we polled the same Smithtown couple who had just come from the polls on the prospect of electronic touch-screen use in their neck of the woods.
“I don’t know, some people might get confused—especially the older people. There are plenty of people giving instructions, but even today I had to put my vote [in] three times.”
Exactly; have you ever sent an Instagram reel a few times by accident, glitch be damned?
What if you sent your vote in three times?
What then?
That’s right: In the virtual space, there is no “un-send.”