New Yorkers who take advantage of the opportunity to participate in early voting this week can do so at cultural venues across the city. Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of ArtAnd American Museum of Natural History.

And out of town National Susan B. Anthony Museum and House Rochester, the historic home of suffragettes, is an especially opportune place to vote, given the potential to elect Vice President Kamala Harris as the nation’s first female president.

Early voting began on Saturday with a record turnout of 140,145 voters. Electoral College. The total of votes cast over the weekend was 257,860.

New York state introduced early voting in 2019, giving voters an extra nine days to cast their ballots. The measure gives voters more flexibility, including the chance to vote on weekends, and means less waiting in line on Election Day.

People voting at the Brooklyn Museum in New York in 2023. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

The Brooklyn Museum was also an early voting location for the 2020 presidential election. “For many years we have served as a polling place for both presidential elections and state primaries. We are both an early voting and Election Day voting site this cycle,” a museum representative told me.

The Met has become an early voting location for the 2021 mayoral election, hoping to help ease the long waits many experienced the previous year. This year, voting machines were installed in a conference hall.

“The Met is a civic institution that wholeheartedly embraces the values ​​of democracy, and we are honored to be able to support this important effort to ensure New Yorkers have access to early voting,” then-President Dan Weiss said in a speech. expression In that case.

AMNH is a new early voting site opening its doors this year. new Gilding Center -most order A group of three local politicians. State senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, council member Linda Rosenthal and city council member Gale Brewer appealed to the museum over logistical challenges and security concerns at the nearby public school building, which hosted early voting in its cafeteria in 2022 and ’23. .

“The American Museum of Natural History is an important civic resource for our community, so we are particularly excited about the opportunity to serve as a voting site and provide our neighbors with a convenient and accessible way to exercise their basic democratic rights.” museum president Sean M. Decatur said in a speech: expressionNoting that the museum also provides services vaccination site.

(Hoylman-Sigal called the news “dino-mite!”)

In New York City, voters, like all state voters on Election Day, are assigned to one of 155 designated polling places. But in the rest of the state, anyone can participate in early voting anywhere in their county.

That meant long lines, especially in Monroe County, where the Susan B. Anthony Museum served as a first-time polling place. But the estate’s electoral history dates back to 1872, when a federal marshal visited Anthony and informed him that he had arrested him for a crime. voting in the last presidential election.

A “vote here” sign in front of the Susan B. Anthony Museum and House in Rochester, New York. Photograph courtesy of the Susan B. Anthony Museum and House, Rochester, New York.

Anthony was tried, convicted, and fined $100 for the crime; He never paid this fine. Women would not have the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was passed, ratified in 1920.

The Susan B. Anthony Museum has been asking for ballot drop boxes since early voting began. An obstacle was the museum’s small rooms, none of which could accommodate more than a single voting machine, and its limited capacity of just 35 people.

After building a second entrance into the museum’s larger transportation building, the election board finally approved the institution as a polling place.

“Susan B. Anthony dedicated her entire life to securing voting rights, so we feel serving as an early voting location aligns with our mission. This is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, and we’re proud to support our community in this way,” Allison Hinman, the museum’s chief operating officer, told me in an email.

A total of 721 voters cast ballots on the first day of early voting. “This is a historic turning point for women’s rights and equal rights in general,” said Rochester Institute of Technology student Alex Reing. New York Times. “It felt right to vote for a woman here.”

Among those voting there was Democrat Lystra McCoy, who won a seat in the Monroe County legislature by defeating a Republican candidate in the 2023 election.

“We will then place the ceremonial ‘I voted’ sticker on (Anthony’s) grave,” McCoy wrote. instagram. “I’ve never enjoyed voting so much in my life!”