Suffolk GOP fight over even-year elections added taxpayer costs

Suffolk taxpayers have already been hit with more than $1.6 million in GOP-led legal fees over the fight to block even-year elections, a dispute that also carried hotel rooms, banquet tabs and other organizing costs. Riverhead later withdrew from the lawsuit after paying at least $207,000 in legal fees, putting a hard dollar figure on a political battle that started as a calendar fight.

The money trail grew after New York’s even-year election law cleared a legal hurdle. An appellate court upheld the law on May 8, 2025, saying it would take effect for the 2025 vote, and Long Island officials blasted the measure and state government days later. By Oct. 31, 2025, Riverhead had joined a GOP-led federal suit in the Eastern District of New York, where the case is listed as Ashlaw v. State of New York.

The fight sits inside Suffolk County’s own election machinery, where the Board of Elections is split between John Alberts, the Democratic commissioner, and Erin McTiernan, the Republican commissioner. That institutional divide has made the even-year question as much about local power as policy, with Republicans arguing against a change that Democrats and reform advocates have framed as a way to concentrate voter attention and, in some cases, reduce administrative costs.

National election policy groups have long noted why the issue keeps coming back. The National Conference of State Legislatures says many states consolidate local elections with federal contests to lift turnout and keep voters focused on local races, while the Brennan Center for Justice has argued that shifting elections to even-numbered years can help turnout, especially among underserved communities. In Suffolk, the debate has been less abstract than that, with the cost of the fight now showing up in legal bills and the expenses needed to keep the resistance effort going.

That is why Suffolk legislator Greg Doroski’s move on July 14, 2026, mattered. He sought recovery of more than $230,000 that Suffolk paid in the lawsuit, a figure that gives taxpayers another way to measure the price of a strategy meant to preserve off-cycle elections.