Ashley Torres is the Ulster County Democratic Commissioner of the Board of Elections in Kingston. She said in 2022 New York State changed the law on Absentee voting.

 

“In the past, absentee ballots were held and counted post election. Now the new law has us open and scan those absentee ballots so long as they’re returned to us and reviewed and deemed valid before the election,” she said. “So if anybody returns a ballot to us before November 6, it is scanned and it is reflected in the results on election night [November 7].”

 

Torres said, “If a voter requested an absentee ballot [then] they cannot vote on the machine because we have to verify that they didn’t have an absentee ballot that they requested that was opened and already counted. So that prevents absentee voters from being able to access two ballots.”   

 

Torres said last year’s change in the law takes away the litigation process, “that would happen post election where absentee ballots were scrutinized and treated differently than ballots that were cast in the machine. No longer can a lawyer for a candidate come in and say I don’t like the absentee ballot because someone put tape on the back of it to seal it shut.”  

 

For this election cycle Torres has issued about 4,200 absentee ballots and as of late October her office has gotten back about 2,800 ballots. In a Presidential year, however, she sends out from 8,000 to 10,000 absentee ballots.

 

Torres pointed out that an absentee voter has until election day, November 7, “It is the last day where a voter can postmark and mail to us by 5 p.m. or return a ballot to us in person at any of our poll sites by 9 p.m. or return it to our office, also by 9 p.m.” The Ulster County Board of Elections is located at 79 Hurley Avenue, Suite 112, Kingston, NY, 12401.

 

Torres said every day after the election her office gets a set of absentee ballots.

 

“We look at them and make sure the signatures match and they go through our review process and then we open them on a daily basis and add them to the results on election night,” she said.

 

Torres dispelled the notion that if an election is not close, her office does not count the absentee ballots, “which is insane to me; that we would just not count valid ballots because somebody won by more than the amount that we have. That is never something that happens, we count every single one of them and we just keep counting them until the deadline comes or we can’t accept them anymore.” She noted that December 2 is the last day they count absentee ballots.  

 

Torres said there is a difference between absentee and affidavit ballots.

 

“Absentee ballots are requested by voters and they have to use one of the valid reasons to get it and they’re already registered to vote and are in our system. We’re just delivering their ballot to them in this absentee method. We mail it to them or they come into our office and get an absentee ballot,” she said. “Affidavit ballots are only available at early voting and poll sites and these are when somebody goes to one of the in-person voting centers, tries to get a ballot to vote on the machine and then can’t because there are specific reasons.” She said this may be due to an issue with the ballot, to a person being an inactive voter or they may have moved from one place to another, “and we have to research the affidavit they’re going to cast and once we do and it looks valid, then we count them but we can’t count them until a week after the election. We have to do the research and then we have to create a list that goes to the New York State Board of Elections so that we can share our list with the other counties in the state and they share their lists with us and we match that to see if any of those affidavit voters either did another absentee ballot somewhere else or if they voted in person somewhere else.” She noted that this prevents an affidavit voter from submitting a ballot in Ulster and then going over to Dutchess, where they may have lived, and vote for a second time.