County primary voter turnout low in 23rd District Congressional District race between Gies, Stocker

By RICK MILLER

Olean Star

Early voting in Cattaraugus County that started on Saturday is going slow. 

As of mid-day Tuesday, 114 people had voted, according to the Board of Elections. 

Early voting locations are at the Board of Elections offices in Little Valley and the Cutco Building at Jamestown Community College in Olean. Early voting is open:

• Wednesday, June 17 — Noon-8 p.m.
• Thursday, June 18 — 8 a.m.-4 p.m.
• Friday, June 19 — 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
• Saturday, June 20 — 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
• Sunday, June 21 — 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

The premeiere local contest is the Democratic primary between Aaron Gies, a St. Bonaventure university theology professor on leave for the campaign, and Tonawanda attorney Kevin Stocker.

In the other Democratic primary, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is being challenged by Drew Warshaw, an affordable housing nonprofit leader, and Raj Goyle, a former Kansas state legislator.

In Cattaraugus County there is also Republican voting for committeemen in Ward 5 in the city of Olean, the city of Salamanca and towns of Olean, Portville, Red House and South Valley.

A profile in the Buffalo News on Sunday stated that Stocker doesn’t live in the 23rd District. He told the Olean Star Tuesday that his home in Kenmore is a stone’s throw from the congressional district line.

Stocker said the law states a person has to be a resident of New York to run for Congress. He said he would move into the district if he wins the primary. Other candidates for the office did not live in the district when they ran including the late Jack Kemp and Nick Langworthy, who lives in Niagara County. The Redistricting Commission redrew the district to include Langworthy’s Pendleton home.

“I’ve been a resident of New York for 62 years,” said Stocker, who noted that Gies moved to New York seven years ago. “I would move into the district,” he added.

Gies, who spoke to the Olean Star on Tuesday from Owego, where he had been interviewed by a Binghamton television reporter.

Both had been enrolled Republicans before switching to the Democratic Party, and Stocker ran for state legislature as a Republican.

The two candidates have both chided Langworthy for failing to meet with constituents at town halls, while holding their own separate town halls. They have met only once in a forum sponsored by the Chautauqua County League of Women Voters last month in Fredonia.

A second forum between the candidates is scheduled Wednesday at the Clarence High School auditorium at 6:30 p.m., sponsored by the Erie County League of Women voters. The issue of residency is likely to come up for Stocker.

Stocker said his campaign has been sending out campaign literature and making phone calls to between 66,000 and 128,000 voters in the weeks leading up to the June 23 primary.

Cattaraugus County Democratic party Chairman Mandy Bushnell said local Democrats knew Stocker doesn’t live in the 23rd Congressional District, but that he has time to move into the district. “He does have a plan to move here.”

Gies hasn’t raised the issue of Stocker’s residency except when it has come up in some of the 100 forums he’s conducted across the district.

“I don’t make a big issue about him and his qualifications,” Gies said. “I’ve tried to make the campaign about issues.” “People are right to be concerned about it (residency), not because it’s illegal, it isn’t,” said Gies, who has held about five times as many forums across the district as Stocker. 

Gies said his aim in the “red” 23rd District is to get as many independent voters in the general election as possible. The district is 27% Democratic, 40% Republican and 33% independent and nonpartisan voters. “The key is independent voters.”

He said he’s trying to present a “positive, unifying message with an edge.”

Gies said canvassing continues by volunteers who are knocking on doors across the district to remind them of next Tuesday’s Democratic congressional primary as well as the early primary voting.

“We’ve done some phone bank work in Erie County” where half of the district’s Democrats are registered, Gies said.
“It’s very important for people to get out and vote,” Gies said. 

“This is probably the best chance that Democratic voters are going to have until November to tell the national establishment that there’s a real race here, that there’s a candidate with momentum, and we can win, and they should get behind us,” Gies said.