Early voting has been available for this election in 2022, and was in several locations, including the Fishkill Town Hall. If you’re trying to figure out where your polling site is now for Election Day, you’ll need to use the Dutchess County Board Of Elections Website or New York State’s Voter Lookup Elections tool. Finding your location is a little tricky. A Little Beacon Blog will walk you through it:

• Go to https://elections.dutchessny.gov/ and click on the “Where To Vote” button in the middle of the home page, or “General Election Polling Places” from the top navigation. Or click right here to take you directly to the page.

• From this 2022 General Election Polling Site page, you’ll see an alphabetical list of communities. Look for Beacon. Can’t find it? That’s because it’s listed with a C/ . Which means not much to most people, but here on this list, it might mean “City Of.” This code has placed Beacon and Poughkeepsie at the bottom of the list, which is also confusing because even if alphabetized by C, the name would be up with the Cs. Regular readers of A Little Beacon Blog know that we are not grammarians, and do make mistakes from time to time. We also like to make up our own grammar rules, and make questionable organizational choices. But this one takes the cake. We love cake!

• Once you find C/Beacon, there are numbers listed as to where you belong. Not sure where you belong? Scroll back up to the top of the website and click the link that says to do the Poll Site Search. Or click right here to go directly to it.

• Type in your address, and voila, you have your destination.

• What time is voting for the General Election? That is on yet a different page, right here, and is from 6am-9pm. If you had done early voting, those times were on a PDF right here. Early voting is not available the day before election day.

Could this information have been consolidated better? Yes. It all could have been on one page. With big buttons to access important lookup tools.

Republican Commissioner Erik Haight Says Early Voting “A Colossal Waste Of Money”

The Beacon Free Press interviewed the Democratic Commissioner, Hannah Black, and the Republican Commissioner, Erik Haight, about Dutchess County Board of Election’s preparation for the 2022 election. They both felt well prepared and balanced when working with each other to ensure an accurate voter count.

When asked by the Beacon Free Press for their thoughts on early voting and if more people were taking advantage of it, Republican Commissioner Erik Haight said: “The facts show that it is a colossal waste of money. While it may increase the convenience of voting for a few people, it has not increased voting [participation]. It is the same in the other 33 states that have early voting. It spreads out the voting.“

For the 9 days of early voting now available, his statement implies no care for the people who do take advantage of early voting. Those people may include parents who have children in school, but since school is closed on Election Day, have their children at home, and need to either lug them to the polling site (good luck with a 5 year old who runs around, or a baby swaddled to the body of the parent, and two pre-pre teens who don’t want to be there, standing in a long line). Or a person with a job during the day who has 9 other opportunities to fit in voting around work shifts. Or a person caring for an aging parent at home and has limited times when they can be left alone.

This sharp disregard for the “convenience” of one’s life in an issue as important as voting is a spit in the face to any person who needs more time in their schedule to vote other than one day when schools and some jobs are closed.

Democratic Commissioner Hannah Black responded to the voter turnout number question by saying: “It fluctuates on the election, depending on voter engagement on the races within each year.”

Republican Commissioner Haight Notes: “We Have Kooks Who Don’t Believe That Trump Lost”

The Beacon Free Pressed asked the Commissioners about how “rampant FOIL requests” are impacting the Dutchess County Board of Elections, as they are across the country. Commissioner Black responded: “There has been an unusual amount of FOIL requests that have to do with the 2020 election,” she said.

Commissioner Haight explained: “Essentially, we have these ‘kooks’ - you can quote me on that; they’re kooks - who don’t believe that Trump lost.” He added: “I can speak for Dutchess County that the results that we certified in 2020 are 100% accurate.”

The Beacon Free Press went on to explain how the FOIL process works for the Dutchess County Board of Elections: “the commissioners will set the terms under which the documents may be viewed. The plan was to have those requesting the FOILs pay up front for the viewing of the materials; because the documents are secured in a bipartisan fashion, the Board of Elections needs to hire a Democrat and a Republican to oversee the viewing.”

Said Height: “They can handle the material, they can view the material, but they’re not allowed to copy it or take photos of it. It will cost the kooks about $40 an hour to view this material. I assume they’ll need a full work week to view the files - they’re required to reimburse the taxpayers for the folly of this task these folks are undertaking.”

Apparently the viewing session is coming. Commissioner Haight told the newspaper: “In the coming weeks, I’ll reach out to these FOILers and give them a little bit of time to get organized. All of our employees are tied up running this election. I will not jeopardize this election because these kooks don’t believe we ran a fair election in 2020.”