MONTICELLO – Sullivan County’s Board of Elections is joining with boards in other small counties to tell the state that early voting does not work in their counties.
For one thing, it costs Sullivan $1,000 per person who voted in the limited number of primary elections that were recently held, Commissioner Lori Benjamin to the Government Services Committee of the county legislature on Thursday.
“We were open for nine days, which included overtime for staff, and we had a total of 58 voters. Even on election day, when it is a slow primary, we only had six election districts that had primaries – we had total of voters that could come out of 50,000 voters who could come out, 4,400, and we didn’t even get close to that,” she said.
One member of the public at the meeting criticized the commissioner say the cost per vote should not be an issue given Americans have spilled their blood to confirm the right to vote.
