Schenectady County voters weigh-in on this year’s election

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Tuesday morning at the Rotterdam Senior Citizens’ Center was quiet. Voters were able to cast their in-person ballots within minutes of their arrival at the poll site.

“I haven’t voted since Reagan,” Darrell Stevens, a Schenectady County resident told NEWS10 on his way out of the polls. Stevens says he hasn’t felt strongly about an election since the 1980s but knows that voting is an important right to exercise.

Another voter, Kylee Fleming, shared a similar sentiment. “There’s so much going on in the world right now,” Fleming told NEWS10, “in our country, in our state, that everyone needs to get out and vote this year. It’s very important.”

It seemed to be just as important to over 27,000 Schenectady County residents who utilized the early voting option.

“It’s been really busy, of course. Lots of paper still to be counted, but with the 27,000 already cast on machines, that will make very quick work tonight,” said Amy Hild, Democratic Elections Commissioner for the county, “and then hopefully we’ll have a great turn out today and load all those results, and then we’ll be getting ready for next Monday to start counting absentee ballots and affidavits.”

Even with so many voters getting it done before Election Day, the Board of Elections was prepared for the potential of long lines, and to execute the COVID-19 precautions necessary to make voting in-person a safe endeavor.

“The amount of time that a voter spends at a poll site is kind of minimal once they get inside,” said the county’s Republican Elections Commissioner, Darlene Harris.

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