Worth the risk? Schools stay open in NY on election day despite safety issues

Here's an interesting (and alarming) fact for you - your chance of being in a fatal car accident increases almost 20% on election day. Now, I'm not saying curl up in your house and hide, because it's important to get out and vote. But the safety concerns are real - especially for schools used as polling places.

Five states in the US mandate that schools serving as polling places on election day don't hold class: Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia, and Rhode Island; as you can see, New York is not on the list. We wondered about that, so we visited a few schools in Onondaga County to see what they thought about it, and I have to say I was pretty surprised. Most shrugged it off, saying they weren't too concerned because they have safety under control at their school.

One teacher at Lincoln Middle School on James Street said he was happy not to have the day off because that would mean one more day they would have to make up at the end of the year, and with all the snow days the schools have around here, they don't really want one more (an interesting note: all the states on the list have pretty warm climates and not many snow days...). Even a few parents we talked with weren't concerned, saying they trust their kids and their schools to take care of them.

Election day is tomorrow, and hopefully everything will go smoothly. Just watch out when you're on the road...