Oct 29
2025
Voters have limited choices in next week’s elections
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There are 150 elected offices on the ballot in Erie County next week. Fewer than half of those races are contested.
Little wonder voter engagement is so low.
In countywide elections, there are 21 jobs up for grabs: all 11 seats on the legislature, eight judgeships, the office of comptroller and sheriff. (Two of those judgeships are on the state Supreme Court, Eighth Judicial District, which includes eight counties, including Erie.)
Voters have a choice between candidates in only six races — for comptroller and five legislative seats. The candidates for judge are all cross-endorsed by multiple parties, and there are precisely as many candidates as there are open seats. Six incumbent legislators face no challengers, and neither does Erie County Sheriff John Garcia.
There are three city council seats on the ballot in Lackawanna but only one race features more than one candidate.
In the City of Buffalo, there are seven offices on the ballot: mayor, city court judge and six district school board seats. Only mayor and the West District school board seat are competitions.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomThe City of Tonawanda is an exception to the rule. Four city council seats, a city court judgeship and the office of mayor are on the ballot, and there are two candidates for each seat.
Countywide, voters have a choice between candidates in just 43 percent of Tuesday’s elections.
That percentage holds true in the county’s 26 towns and villages, where there are 115 seats up for election and multiple candidates for 50 of them. In 10 of those municipalities, voters have no choices for town or village positions.
Here, too, are exceptions to the rule. In the towns of Cheektowaga and Hamburg — former Democratic strongholds where Republicans recently have won town board majorities — every race on the ballot is contested. In Amherst, where Republicans hope to return to power after years out in the cold, all five jobs on the ballot are contested.
“The lack of competitive elections is one of the ways that democracy dies,” said Paul Wolf, founder and president emeritus of the New York Coalition for Open Government.
“Party bosses do not like competitive elections and they have been successful in eliminating competition. It is extremely hard to even get on the ballot to run for office without the blessings of a party boss.”
Wolf’s prescription for the ailment begins with term limits for elected officials. He also believes when elected officials step down before their terms are complete, the resulting vacancies should be filled by quickly called open elections. Currently they are filled on a temporary basis by appointment, then by means of special elections, in which party bosses pick the candidates, rather than primary election voters.
Two incumbent Erie County legislators recently won their seats that way: District 1 Legislator Lawrence Dupre and District 2 Legislator Taisha St. Jean Tard. Both were appointed to vacancies and are now seeking full, two-year terms.
Dupre is being challenged by Republican William Respress, who has not mounted much of a campaign in the heavily Democratic district. St. Jean Tard is being challenged by Betty Jean Grant, a former city and county lawmaker running on the independent Restore Buffalo line.
Wolf also believes in lowering the number of signatures a prospective candidate needs to collect to qualify for the ballot. Grant, running on the independent line, had to collect 1,500 signatures to qualify for Tuesday’s ballot. St. Jean Tard needed 500 to qualify for the June Democratic primary, in which she was unopposed — because Grant’s nominating petition for the primary was disqualified.
Wolf called the different requirements for party candidates and independent candidates “outrageous.”
“We need more choices and new voices for our elections,” he said.
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