Yesterday, by pure happenstance, while checking to see that my county had not changed my registration information from Democrat to Independent (yeah, since Arizona I've been paranoid about such stuff) I discovered something that shocked me. The polls where I live will only be open from 12 Noon until 9 PM, making it difficult for many people who work swing shifts to vote.

I checked to see if this was a statewide phenomenon, or limited to the cheapskates on my own local Board of Elections. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that outside of New York City and the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Erie, where the polls will open at 6 in the morning, every other county in New York does not open for voting until Noon. Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, and Putnam counties are all essentially suburbs of New York City. Erie County, which includes Buffalo, is the only outlier in the bunch.

Every other county in New York state will open their polls for voting in the primary six hours later. If you think this doesn't matter, think again. Many poor and lower middle class folks work swing shifts, which will make it much more difficult for them to vote in this critical election. If you think that seems unwarranted and unfair, and smacks of potential voter suppression, well join the crowd.

I called the New York State's official Board of Elections information number, (518) 474-6336, and was basically given the runaround. The woman who answered the phone was nice enough, but she had no answer as to why only the voters in Buffalo and NYC - and its six downstate suburban neighbors - are blessed with SIX more hours in which to vote, compared to everyone else in New York State. She took my name and phone number, and promised that someone with "more knowledge of the reasons why some voters are more equal than others" would call me, but I suspect it will be a cold day in hell before I hear back from them.

Until I learned of this, to my mind, effort to suppress the votes in counties in which millions of people live (yes, Virginia, New York City and its burbs do not equal all of New York state, not by by a long shot), I had no idea that the polling hours would be so restricted across much of the state next Tuesday.

To give you an idea, the total population of the New York state is roughly 20 million people. Of that number, about 12.25 million (2012 estimates) live in the counties listed above where voters get 6 extra hours to vote on Tuesday, April 19th. The means roughly 8 million people reside in the counties where we cannot vote from 6:00 AM until Noon on Tuesday, unlike those more privileged New Yorkers, most of whom live in or around New York City.

This change in voting hours has not been actively publicized to the electorate by the government of New York State or, as far as I know, by the local county board of elections where voting hours have been cut by six hours. I only learned of it by sheer accident.

Now, some may claim there is nothing nefarious going on here. Maybe there is traditionally lower turnout in all these other countries, so that it makes sense to keep the polls open longer in only a lucky few, and cut the hours for everyone else to cast their ballot for the candidate of their choice come Tuesday. Well, to that I can only say this: bullshit.

Last November, Rochester, New York and Monroe county held its local elections for judges, the school board, the county executive, city council and the county legislature. Turnout for such off year elections is always lower than almost any elections we hold around here, because most people only vote when national candidates who spend lot's of money advertising show up. Guess when the polls opened just a few months ago?

Polling hours

All polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesday.

If you're not sure where to vote, you can find your polling place at monroecounty.gov/etc/voter or voterlookup.elections.state.ny.us/votersearch.aspx if you live outside Monroe County.

That's right. In an election where turnout was dismal, at only 28% of registered voters, Monroe County still had the polls open for the full traditional hours of 6 o'clock in the morning until 9:00 o'clock at night. Yet, in a presidential primary election in which interest is extremely high in both the Republican and Democratic parties, as demonstrated in a large surge of new registrations, suddenly voting hours are being cut a critical six hours for almost all of us unlucky duckies who live outside New York City and its environs.

This in a year when voter turnout across the country has rivaled that of 2008. So don't give me any song and dance that cutting the voting hours for millions of registered voters doesn't matter.

If you are a New Yorker who lives in a county where your voting hours have been slashed, please call the New York State Board of Elections at (518) 474-6336 to demand that the polls open at 6:00 am as is traditionally the case in every election in New York State. Call your local board of elections, too. You can find their website here at this link and clicking on your county shown on the map displayed there.

Regardless of what happens, and regardless of which candidate you support, we need to get the word out to the people who live in these New York counties that their hours to vote are not what they likely expect, and we need to demand that New York State and the local boards of election do the right thing and allow everyone who lives in New York the same right to vote within the same hours - between 6:00 AM and 9:00 PM - as those who live in or near New York City .