BUFFALO, N.Y. — With over 36,000 Erie County voters choosing the early voting option, we'll be waiting for the 2023 regular Election Day on Tuesday.
We know this is traditionally an off-year election here with no federal or state major offices on the ballot.
But the Erie County Executive race has obviously received most of the focus.
Channel 2 sought more on potential voter interest.
More of the over 621 - thousand registered Erie County voters could choose to come out Tuesday to choose among the estimated 149 candidates depending on their local ballots. So what could draw them beyond the top-of-ticket county executive race between Democrat Mark Poloncarz and Republican Chrissy Casilio?
Perhaps some contested or even controversial candidates in town supervisor and board races in specific communities like Cheektowaga withdraw power for that county leader choice or maybe not.
Republican Political Analyst Car Calabrese told us, "I'm told that the Republican candidate for Supervisor is very competitive. That could be a race to watch tomorrow night. If a Republican wins a supervisor's race in Cheektowaga that could bode very well for Chrissy Casilio. If she wins Cheektowaga and there is a low turnout in Buffalo which probably will be the case given that races were decided in the primaries - that could make for a long night"
He added, "I'm particularly gonna be looking at the county executive race in Cheektowaga, Lancaster, and West Seneca. Those...that's always been referred to by Republicans as the golden triangle. You win in that and you get a low turnout in Buffalo and you can win a county race."
Democratic Political Analyst Ken Kruly counters that "Cheektowaga of course has had a variety of issues going on and so that might draw some more attention. The other two are probably not so much. And there hasn't been a lot of flack flying back and forth among those candidates for local offices which I'm sure they'll be trying to get their own voters out. But whether that happens or not remains to be seen"
Otherwise, there are three real contested county legislature seats but Democrats are expected to keep power.
So as far as political expectations Kruly summarizes that "There's not a lot of interest going on locally in the elections and so for that reason, I think there's gonna be a relatively low turnout tomorrow."
But Calabrese notes "Good weather tends to increase turnout and bad weather decreases it. And the other thing that will play for both sides is the quality of the grassroots efforts - get out the voter effort."
If you do decide to vote on Tuesday you can check out the sample ballots on the website of the Erie County Board of Elections.