Politics newsletter: Early voting to begin on crowded Nassau, Suffolk ballots

Early voting starts this week and you might need a scorecard to take with you because New York’s ballot is longer than ever this year.

I took a quick side-by-side look at Nassau County’s sample ballot from 2025 and 2026 and the difference jumps out. Last year, a resident was casting a vote in races for three levels of government: countywide office, county legislature and town offices.

This year? It’s seven.

The Nassau ballot will include three statewide offices (including governor), Congress, State Senate, State Assembly, county legislature, town offices and local judges. Combined, more than 50 races are on the sample ballot, though you’ll vote in a smaller portion of those.

In Suffolk County, residents aren’t voting for county legislature (because lawmakers changed the length of their terms last year to avoid running again this year).  But there are races for county clerk and comptroller, in addition to statewide, town and judicial races, making its ballot just about as lengthy as Nassau’s.

The ballots are so extensive because, as you might know already, state representatives approved a law that changes almost all elections in New York to even-numbered years. It’s being phased-in, but by 2028, it will be pretty much complete.

The change was driven by Democrats and fiercely opposed by Republicans. Each had civic and strategic reasons for their stances.

Democrats say voter turnout is way bigger in even-numbered years when either the president or governor is up for reelection and that’s true. But they also know Democrats historically fare better in New York in even-numbered years.

Republicans historically do better in odd-numbered years. They also say campaigns for town board or county legislature will become nationalized or drowned out altogether. My colleague Candice Ferrette had a good story recently on what’s it like, to paraphrase the old “Cheers” theme song, to campaign this year when seemingly nobody knows your name.

For a good look at all the Long Island races, complete with candidate and campaign summaries, check out Newsday’s 2026 Voters’ Guide.

By Yancey Roy

yancey.roy@newsday.com@yanceyroy