Shall we switch to November?

VILLAGE OF LIVERPOOL – For more than 90 years, the village of Liverpool has conducted its annual elections in either March or June. This year, village voters will have a chance to move its mid-June election date to November, coinciding with the general election.

At its April 15 meeting, the Village of Liverpool Board of Trustees – Mayor Stacy Finney and trustees Melissa Cassidy, Rachel Ciotti and Matt Devendorf – voted 3 to 1 to put a referendum on this year’s village election ballot in which voters could choose the annual election date.

While Democrats Finney, Ciotti and Cassidy voted in favor of the referendum, Republican Devendorf voted against it. The board’s other Republican, Mike LaMontagne, was absent on April 15.

The two Republican Trustees – Devendorf and LaMontagne – are running for re-election this year, and both are running unopposed. So is Village Justice Anthony LaValle, also a Republican.

On Tuesday, June 18, however, voters will also be asked to weigh in on whether the village should switch the annual village election from mid-June to early-November.

Cassidy explained how the referendum was inspired.

When the Democrats went door-to-door during last year’s campaign, they found that changing the election date was one of the top two issues concerning village residents.

“The idea came from knocking on your neighbor’s doors,” Cassidy said. The referendum, she added, “is empowering our residents, allowing them to choose the date.”

If voters approve the change on Tuesday, next year’s village election will be aligned with the general election scheduled on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Supporters of the move claim that voter turn-out will increase in November, while opponents say village elections would be overshadowed by county, state and federal races.

Voters in the nearby villages of Baldwinsville and Fayetteville recently chose to switch their election dates from the spring to the fall.

Nearly 70 percent of those voters favored the November election date, according to Onondaga County Board of Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny, a Democrat.

So now six of the county’s 15 villages have decided to conduct elections in November.

B’ville and F’ville join four other villages which have moved their elections from March to November, Solvay, East Syracuse, Tully and Elbridge.

Eight years ago, the county board of elections made it possible for all villages to move to November elections if they chose to.

“If a village moved their election, they could save 100 percent of the cost of running an election as opposed to March and June,” Czarny said.

Polls will be open from noon to 9 p.m. Tuesday at the village hall, 310 Sycamore St.