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Syracuse natives Maxine and Otto McDonald cast their ballots together on Election Day at Erwin First United Methodist Church, the same polling place they’ve chosen since 1995. They did so even as a new wave of coronavirus cases spread across Onondaga County, posing a potential risk to voters.  

“I vote every year in person — every year,” Maxine said, smiling behind her mask at her husband beside her. 

“It makes you feel like you voted,” Otto said. 

The coronavirus pandemic, which continues to ravage the United States and forced many Americans to reconsider how they voted this year, is just one of many accessibility issues that voters faced in the 2020 election. Even as Onondaga County experienced record-breaking voter turnout, Syracuse community members, especially people of color, experienced barriers to casting their ballot. 

The voting process is not equitable for everybody in Syracuse, said Cjala Surratt, a co-founder of the Black Leadership Coalition. The pandemic only illuminated obstacles that have historically disenfranchised Syracuse’s Black and brown communities, she said.

For some marginalized communities, voting in 2020 has been particularly difficult because of barriers to accessing information.

Although county officials and local activist organizations have distributed election information online, Surratt said the community’s efforts to engage a diverse group of voters often fail, as organizers don’t recognize the technology divide that disproportionately impacts people of color.

An estimated 18 million U.S. households do not have internet access, according to the Migration Policy Institute. A 2019 Pew Research study found that 25% and 23% of Black and Hispanic people can only access the internet via their cell phones, respectively. 

The Onondaga County Board of Elections has worked diligently to send out information through mail and social media to inform county residents about voting this year, said Dustin Czarny, the Democratic commissioner of the board.

“We’ve done pretty much everything we can do at this point,” he said. “I don’t think anybody doesn’t know that an election is happening.” 

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MORE COVERAGE:

• Syracuse voters feel safe voting in person despite rise in COVID-19 cases
• Incarcerated Syracuse residents watch 2020 election unfold from behind bars
• Onondaga County sees record high early, mail-in votes
• Between 2 worlds: how Syracuse’s racist housing policies created a racial divide

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But civic engagement groups also tend to exclude the most relevant information that some people need to know to register and vote, Surratt said. 

Many previously incarcerated people falsely believe that they can’t vote because of previous convictions, but voting rights are automatically restored once a person is released from state prison and is off parole, she said. 

Black people are incarcerated at a rate five times more than white people, while Hispanic people are almost twice as likely as white people to be incarcerated, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. 

“When you have a community that’s disproportionately affected by the carceral state, that information should be readily known,” Surratt said. 

Other times, city residents don’t receive voting information by mail because of incorrect addresses or because they live in a building complex with confusing apartment numbers, said Gina Iliev, a Black Leadership Coalition member. 

Proximity to polling places and access to transportation also affects voting accessibility, Surratt said.

Three of the six early voting places in Onondaga County were located in Syracuse. Czarny previously pushed to increase the number to eight, but the effort fell through without the support of the BOE’s Republican commissioner, the Republican-controlled county legislature or the county executive, he said. 

New York state expanded mail-in voting options ahead of the 2020 election due to the coronavirus pandemic . But voting in person remains important to some people, said Ayanna Harris, who voted at Salina Town Hall on Election Day. 

Some voters, especially essential workers, have to cast their ballot around their work schedule. James Boyd, who works in local parks, arrived at the Spiritual Renewal Center polling place on Lancaster Avenue around 6 a.m. on Election Day so he could cast his ballot before going to work. 

Voting this year felt more accessible to Harris because of the accommodations her employer and her child’s school made in light of the pandemic, she said.

The inability to access public transportation can also pose challenges for voters who would prefer to cast their ballot in-person, Surratt said. 

Only 27.6% of Syracuse households do not have access to a vehicle, according to a recent CNY Fair Housing report. While most Centro bus routes are concentrated in Syracuse, reliable transportation is still a significant issue for many people living in the city’s public housing, the report stated. 

Besides maintaining expanded early and mail-in voting options, other policy changes could make voting more accessible, Iliev said. Adding pre-paid postage to ballots, for example, could mitigate barriers people with low incomes face in casting their ballot, she said. 

In an earlier congressional primary election in central New York, voter turnout soared after the state provided postage for mail-in voters at the time.

“The mode of voting changes the outcome,” Iliev said. “So the easier you make it — the closer to home, rather, that you make it — the more likely it is that Black and brown communities are going to engage.” 

Many Syracuse community members are experiencing anxiety about the impacts of the election for Black people and people of color, especially as communities of color are disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, Surratt said. Immigrants who are unable to vote have rallied to encourage those who can to do so, she said.

Now more than ever, it is crucial that Syracuse voters can make their voices heard in local politics, Surratt said. The local community, not just city developers or officials at Syracuse University, which some residents have said has an outsized influence in the city, should have a say in determining their elected officials, she said.

In a display of solidarity, Black Leadership Coalition members spent several days handing out coffee to early voters waiting in line to cast their ballot, some of them in near-freezing temperatures. 

“We wanted people to see that we were rooting for them and that we really want to support our community,” Iliev said. “(Voting) is something that we are owed. This is our responsibility, but it’s also something that’s been taken away from us.”

Asst. news digital editor Abby Weiss and Asst. news copy editor Mira Berenbaum contributed reporting to this article.

Published on November 8, 2020 at 11:10 pm

Contact Marnie: ammunozc@syr.edu