Rockland election commissioners split on extending early voting as lines stretch for hours

NEW CITY — Rockland County’s elections commissioners are at odds about extending polling hours for the remaining days of early voting, which means it's not likely to happen.

Westchester County tacked on an hour per day on the remaining days, Wednesday through Sunday, of early voting.

Rockland County's Democratic Elections Commissioner Kristen Zebrowski Stavisky said she proposed a plan to extend the hours to 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, instead of noon to 8 p.m.; remain at 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday; and then extend on Saturday and Sunday by three hours, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. instead of 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“Is it the perfect answer? No. But it is some attempt to deal with this in the middle of it,” said Stavisky, adding that it wasn't feasible to create more sites for this round of early voting. 

But Patricia Giblin, the Republican elections commissioner for Rockland County, has said she does not agree.

“If there’s not agreement, it doesn’t happen,” Stavisky said.

“What everybody’s forgetting is that there is voting hours on Election Day and there’s 62 sites open on Election Day where people can vote 6 in the morning to 9 o’clock at night,” Giblin said on Wednesday. 

The Republican commissioner said that the four early polling sites in Rockland have already extended their hours by allowing anyone on line at closing time to stay and cast their ballot. On Tuesday, she said, the polls closed at 8 p.m. but the last ballot was cast at Clarkstown Town Hall at 9:52 p.m.; at Ramapo Town Hall at 9:20 p.m. and at Orangetown Town Hall at 9:41 p.m. The other early-voting polling site in Rockland is at Haverstraw Town Hall.

Stavisky countered that "More hours means more voters, period.” And that, she said, has value. "A few more hours would get more people in to vote in person, which is what (the voters) want."

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The Democrat said it's not an option to do nothing as voters report waiting two to three hours on lines around Rockland.

"We have obligation under the Election Law to try to alleviate lines over 30 minutes," Stavisky said. "It’s not 'if you want to,' its an obligation."

Giblin said, though, that now is not the time to change course. “It’s unheard of and unprecedented that we would change Election Day hours in the middle of an election.”

“For 100 years, we’ve had one day to vote,” Giblin said. “Now we have 10 days to vote.”

New York just instituted early voting last year. This is the first presidential election that allows the method. Stavisky added: "If I have anything to say about, there will be a lot more early voting sites in four years."

Nancy Cutler writes about People & Policy. Click here for her latest stories. Follow her on Twitter at @nancyrockland.