Early voting is underway in New York and all eyes are on the presidential race.
But that's not the only office up for election.
There are Congressional and some Senate seats on the ballot, as well as local races which vary depending on where you live.
In Genesee County, almost all local seats are unopposed. In fact, of the 15 local offices on the ballot, there are just two contested seats and there's not a single Democratic candidate in the heavily Republican county.
WBFO's Holly Kirkpatrick spoke with Howard Owens, publisher of The Batavian, to find out why so many elections are uncontested in the county and to discuss the issues that have people talking there. You can listen to their conversation by pressing the "Listen" button, or read the transcript below.
WBFO: Why are so many seats uncontested in Genesee County?
Owens: In my perception - so I've been covering Genesee County for about 16 years - and my perception is there's always been a low number of Democratic candidates. Democrats have always complained about their difficulty in recruiting candidates to run for office, and have made a lot of effort in that regard. I would say over the last several years, particularly since the advent of Trump, the kind of feedback I'm hearing from local Democrats is it's gotten a lot harder to recruit candidates. You know, this is a heavily red county and there's a lot of support for Trump here and there's a lot of concern that being a Democratic candidate is going to open you up to a lot of negative reaction from people.
WBFO: So in general then, what issues have your readers talking?
Owens: I think everybody's concentrated on the presidential race and you know, what people see as the disparity between the two candidates. Obviously here there's a lot of support for Trump. Nobody is kind of budging that from that position.
WBFO: And how about the subject of immigration? You know, at Trump rallies that's a subject that is frequently raised. Is that being talked about in Genesee County?
Owens: Particularly for Trump supporters. I mean, when they talk about Trump that's one of the first issues they raise is immigration. So you know, that does seem to be a concern and it's something of a dividing line even among Republicans here because so many of our Republican people in this county who are Republican are also in agriculture, and they tend to have a different take on immigration than than a lot of other Republicans these days.
WBFO: In what way?
Owens: Well, you know, they've been hurting for a long time for labor and so they want to see something done that will help restore labor force to agriculture.
WBFO: And using immigrants in order to do that?
Owens: Right. I mean, for what, 40 or 50 years, immigrants have been the primary labor source for farmers all across the country. So it becomes much more difficult to bring in the crop, so to speak, if you don't have experienced workers.
WBFO: Genesee County sits in New York's 24th Congressional District. The race there is between Republican Claudia Tenney, the incumbent, and Democrat David Wagenhauser. Is that race registering at all?
Owens: I would say it hasn't really come up at all. I've heard nobody talking about the race. Tenney has made one public campaign-related trip to Genesee County as far as I know. I mean, there has been nothing publicly released - she may have made fundraisers that aren't necessarily made public. But her only appearance here has been when the GOP opened their local campaign headquarters, she was here for that. Otherwise, I haven't seen her campaigning here at all. I haven't seen [Wagenhauser] campaigning here at all. Again, he may be making appearances that are not being made public, but we've not been made aware of any appearances here.
WBFO: I spoke with Genesee County Democratic Commissioner Laurie Longhany on Monday - the third day of early voting - about the early vote turnout in Genesee County, and she said that the first day of early voting was a record turnout. Does that surprise you at all?
Owens: Not, per se. Our news editor voted that day and reported, you know, she got up, reported there were lines. So that was surprising to her. So to that extent perhaps it's surprising - we've not seen that before. Observing [voting] over all the years - and nothing's changed this year - is the two election commissioners always get along very well. They're very cooperative. They're both focused on the same task of ensuring that, you know, a free and fair election, that all votes are properly counted and tabulated. And so I'd say one thing - I think people can have confidence that whatever the results are in Genesee County they're going to accurately reflect the votes that were cast.
WBFO: Howard Owens, publisher of The Batavian, thank you for speaking with me.
Owens: Thank you very much.
