Democratic Congressional candidate Nate McMurray's campaign wants the Erie County Board of Elections to do more to notify voters about upcoming early voting. 

"Under the law, they're required to put together a plan for early voting and we could not find the plan," McMurray said. "Every other county had a plan but Erie County had nothing on its website. They say they did but we couldn't find it and if it was on the website it was buried."

What You Need To Know

  • Congressional candidate Nate McMurray's campaign filed a lawsuit on Tuesday over the need for Erie County BOE to notify voters about early voting 

  • McMurray said information about early voting appeared on BOE website shortly thereafter 

  • The candidate won't withdraw lawsuit until BOE advertises early voting sites

  • BOE had no comment on pending litigation

The campaign filed a lawsuit this week arguing the Erie County Board of Elections has an obligation to communicate its early voting sites and times to the general public. Early voting starts Saturday.

"It's not like we jumped on them the day of the deadline," McMurray said. "We waited and we kept asking. We only did this because early voting starts in a couple days and we still had no answers."

He said within a half an hour of filing the lawsuit, the information became available on the front page of the BOE website. He believes more needs to be done to make up for the harm already caused to voters.

"I'd like them to put some ads in local papers. It's not expensive. It's relatively easy to do so we're not going to withdraw the lawsuit until we at least get that much out of Erie County," McMurray said.

The board chose not to comment on pending litigation.

"All the other counties faced the same challenges and all the other counties had a plan that we could quickly identify and refer our voters to," McMurray said.

Erie is the largest county in the 27th congressional district, with the most voters and the most early voting sites. However, McMurray said that makes access to the information even more vital.

"With this situation we're in right now, we believe because of COVID and because of the dangers involved, people need to understand where there's going to be voting booths so they can prepare and go early," he said. "We're trying to avoid voter suppression but also a fluke election which is what we're all afraid of."

In total the county expects to have 37 early voting sites which are currently on the website. The early voting period starts Saturday and ends next Sunday.