Oct 31, 2025
OBSERVER file photo Early voting is in its seventh year in Chautauqua County and New York state.
Four locations in Chautauqua County offer a convenience that has been part of the annual election season in New York state since 2019. Early voting began at 9 a.m. last Saturday. It will conclude at 5 p.m. Sunday — a stretch of nine days.
This year’s elections — with the exception of the one statewide proposition regarding Adirondack land — are all local and do not generate the hype that comes with a race for president or state governor. But registered voters still have the opportunity to make their choices through the weekend.
Locations open today through Sunday include: the Chautauqua County Fairgrounds at the 4-H Building & Expo Center, 1089 Central Ave., Dunkirk; The Chautauqua Mall at the main entrance, 318 E. Fairmount Ave. Lakewood. The location within the mall is the former Rue21, close to JCPenney; The Robert H. Jackson Center, 305 E. Fourth St., Jamestown; and the Board of Elections Office, 7 N. Erie St. Mayville.
Polls are closed Monday and reopen across the county for Election Day from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Even the trends indicate that early voting is gaining favor with residents here. Last year, during a presidential election, 17,046 voters cast their ballot before the official Election Day in the county. Compared to the 2020 presidential vote, which was during a pandemic, 14,279 voted early. That is an increase of 19% locally.
Nationally, numbers for early voting also continue to increase. In 2024, there were nearly 86 million voters who participated in person or by mail. Those results offer an indication that in the future fewer will be taking place in a traditional Election Day vote.
“In 2024, Election Day voting did not rebound to the levels it was at before 2020,” notes the University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement. “Roughly 45% of voters waited until Election Day to vote in 2024 compared to more than 60% in 2016.”
It is a transformation that aligns with an American culture that is less connected to a strict schedule. This lifestyle has become more prevalent over the last 15 years due to the immediate access to news, information and entertainment available to us all on a hand-held phone.
Americans no longer want to be on specific time frames. They favor freedom in choices.
It is why streaming programming has become more popular than watching it on prime-time television. Weekly Nielsen ratings prove that premise. The top 10 shows, as of last week, were all sports-related. They included National Football League games in prime time, the postgame shows, college football and an American League Championship series game. Not until No. 12 was there a prime time drama, “Tracker,” which is on CBS.
This never would have been the case in the late 1990s. Viewers historically made time for “Seinfeld” on Thursday evenings on NBC. If they did not, the now-antique Video Cassette Recorder was set to tape the episode.
Not all states are as open to the early in-person process as New York. Pennsylvania, at the moment, does not offer poll sites until Election Day.
It does, however, offer registered voters the option of applying for a mail ballot in person at a county elections office. In that one visit, individuals are able to apply for and submit their ballot.
Surprisingly, about 1.7 million voters took advantage of this option last year in the Commonwealth. That is nearly one-quarter of the 7 million who cast a ballot in the state last year.
In May, a bill sponsored by Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton established early in-person voting. It passed along party lines, 102-101, but remains bottled up in the Senate, The Center Square news organization reported.
“As the birthplace of our great nation and Democracy in America, Pennsylvania should continue to be a bellwether for voter access,” McClinton told The Center Square, calling her bill a “common sense measure to improve the way Pennsylvania conducts our elections.”
It also, for better or worse, is the direction many engaged Americans are moving toward. They want to be part of the process, but also want it to be on their time.
John D’Agostino is editor of The Post-Journal, OBSERVER and Times Observer. Send comments to jdagostino@observertoday.com or call 716-487-1111, ext. 253.
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