Grinding local political numbers

By Gwen Chamberlain While the next presidential election isn’t until 2024, this year — 2023 — is an important election year in Yates County, with a total of 53 local (county-wide and town) offices on the ballot.

Registered voters will soon be approached by hopeful candidates seeking signatures on petitions, and by the end of the year, Yates County will have a new county judge-elect, sheriff-elect and clerk-elect.

This column isn’t about the people who have held or will hold the offices. Those columns may come later. This column is about those of us who do our part to fill those offices, so let’s take a look at how voters self-identify and the comparative composition of local elected boards.

We all know Yates County’s total population hovers around 25,000, and has for several generations, so the following numbers, although statistically small, do paint an interesting picture. According to the New York State Board of Elections, in November 2002 there were a total of 15,131 registered voters in Yates County. Ten years later, in 2012, that number had declined by 654 to 14,477, but in another ten years, in November 2022, there was a recovery of 79 registered voters for a total of 14,556.

While the Republican party is the dominant party in Yates County, accounting for 46 percent of the voters in 2022, the number of registered Republicans has trended downward over the past 20 years, from 8100, or 54 percent of the 2002 total.

At the same time, the Democratic party held steady at 24 percent of the voters over 20 years, despite a slight increase to 26 percent in 2012.

Meanwhile, enrollment in other parties, including Conservative and Working Families, accounted for 5 percent of the voters in 2002, 8 percent in 2012, and 7 percent in 2022.

The biggest change in enrollment over the past 20 years in Yates County is “blank” or non-enrollment. That is, people who did not identify with a political party on their voter registration document. In 2002,16 percent of the voters did not enroll in a party, while in 2012, 19 percent left the enrollment blank, and in 2022 23 percent were not affiliated with a political party.

So, what does all this say about our community?

For starters, the most Republican town is Barrington, where 55 percent of the 851 total voters are registered with the GOP and 21 percent are Democrats.

Jerusalem and Milo are tied for the highest proportion of Democratic voters at 27 percent. The least Democratic town is Potter, with just 16 percent, and the least Republican towns are Italy and Milo, with 43 percent enrolled in the GOP. Jerusalem’s GOP members account for 46 percent.

Potter is tied with Starkey and Italy for the highest percentage of unaffiliated voters at 25 percent each. The town with the lowest share of unaffiliated voters is Barrington, where 19 percent of the total voters do not claim membership in a political party.

To put these figures into context, the statewide percentage of Democratic voters increased from 46 percent in 2002 to 50 percent in 2022. Outside New York City, 35 percent were Democrats in 2002 compared to 38 percent in 2022. Statewide, registered Republicans declined from 28 percent to 22 percent between 2002 and 2022. The biggest change in any enrollment was outside New York City, where the Republican enrollment declined from 37 percent to 30 percent.

In both statewide and outside New York City figures, the unaffiliated enrollment increased over 20 years, from 22 percent to 25 percent outside the city and from 20 percent to 23 percent statewide.

So let’s play with these numbers in reference to Yates County offices. If the 14-member Yates County Legislature reflected the voter enrollment figures, three would be Democrat, six would be Republicans, three would be unaffiliated and one would be from another party (Conservative, Working Family, or other). But that’s not how elections work. All 14 legislators are Republicans and in the 2021 election, 100 percent of the countywide positions were filled by Republicans. Of the 43 town positions on the 2021 ballot, 7 percent were filled by Democrats (two town council positions and one town supervisor post) while 5 percent listed other party enrollment (two town council positions).

Only one Democrat was elected to a town office while challenged by a Republican candidate. The others had no opposition, so their victory was predictable. Yes, assumptions can be made about the outcome of local elections based on these statistics and history. Future columns will be devoted to more discussion as primary dates approach.

For more information about Yates County elections, visit the Board of Elections page at www. yatescounty.org.

Do you have feedback on this or a suggestion for a future column? Feel free to email me at gchamberlain27@ gmail.com.

Grinding local political numbers

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