Districts will also be feeling a financial crunch, as 100% of the financial burden of mail voting will fall on them.

Each district is assembling a list of eligible voters, printing and mailing ballots to them and including a postage-paid envelope for return, all out of pocket. County boards of elections generally are not involved in school elections.

To run for school board this year, candidates do not need to collect signatures and file official petitions. They only need to meet the age and residency requirements and self-nominate to the district or board of education clerk.

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Tupper Lake

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Tupper Lake Central School District Superintendent Seth McGowan said the mail-in ballot process will likely cost the district “multiple thousands of dollars.”

He said district staff are looking at the prior year’s voter lists of over 3,000 registered voters and trying to contact as many as they can, but it is possible it will miss some.

He said he would rather err on the side of caution and mail out too many ballots than too few.

He said that although district staff did not want to take on this time-consuming process, they have no choice.

Business Administrator Dan Bower said the district will likely start mailing ballots early next week.

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Lake Placid

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Lake Placid Central School District Superintendent Roger Catania said his staff has been moving quickly since last Friday to reach out to its 4,000 registered voters.

“This is going to be a timely and a costly process,” he said.

He said there are still plenty of eligible voters who need to be contacted who are not in the county’s registered voter database — or any other database. He said the district will send out a public notice with an invitation to all eligible voters to reach out to the district clerk at lpdistrictclerk@lpcsd.org to get their absentee ballots.

He said results will not be available on the night of the election, as they usually are, as votes will need to be counted by hand instead of machine.

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Saranac Lake

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Saranac Lake Central School District Superintendent Diane Fox said she and her staff are waiting for more guidance from the state, as this process is new. She said the district has distributed tax cap information before, but never on this scale.

The district has 7,000 registered voters, she said, and reaching them all will be difficult. She said some homes require multiple ballots per envelope, and some registered voters, like college students, live out of the area.

Fox said some in-person interaction will be needed to get ballots to new residents, people just reaching voting age and others. She said some people may be given their ballots on June 9 and turn them in by the 5 p.m. deadline the same day.

The whole process, before printing costs, will likely cost over $7,000, she said.

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Stec opposes format

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State Assemblyman Dan Stec questioned the constitutionality of mail voting.

The Republican from Queensbury, who is running for a state Senate seat this fall, also said it is asking too much of school districts to put on this sort of election on such short notice.

“I just think you’re going to have a mess with these school elections,” Stec said. He added that there are “100 different ways” they could be conducted, many of them not good.

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Open seats

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In Lake Placid there are three board seats on the ballot, currently held by Jeffrey Brownell, Joan Hallett-Valentine and Vice President Daniel Marvin. To self-nominate, candidates mush contact District Clerk Karen Angelopoulos.

In Tupper Lake there are two board seats on the ballot, currently held by Wayne Davison and Vice President Jason Rolley. To self-nominate, candidates mush contact District Clerk Shauni Shumway.

In Saranac Lake there are two board seats on the ballot, currently held by Jeff Branch and Mike McCreadie. To self-nominate, candidates mush contact board Clerk Fred Finn.