What Time Does New York's Primary Start?

This is the big one, folks. Or, at least, one of the big ones. After patiently riding out a series of caucuses and primaries that didn't all matter so much — sorry, Wyoming; we can't all be Iowa and New Hampshire — we find ourselves heading into the New York primary, where frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, both with deep ties to the state, hold strong leads. New York will host both parties' primaries April 19. New York polls will open at noon and close at 9 p.m., except in the following cities and counties, where they will open at 6 a.m.: Erie, Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Suffolk, Rockland, Westchester, and New York City. This is pretty much in keeping with the primary schedules that have preceded it; it tends to be an all-day process to accommodate people's schedules.

New York's voting laws are famously restrictive, with no early voting policy and no same-day registration, as The Atlantic noted in a recent article. Heck, even Trump's own kids won't be able to vote for him. Moving on from however you feel about that, let's do some quick delegate math (arithmetic, really). New York will award 291 delegates on the Democratic side; 95 delegates to the Republicans.

A Democratic candidate needs 2,383 delegates to win the nomination. Clinton has won 1289 pledged delegates, plus pretty much every superdelegate ever (or 469, you decide). Sanders has 1,045, and a total of 31 superdelegates to help you put things into perspective. All New York delegates will be divided between the candidates proportionally. Forty out of New York's 44 superdelegates have declared their loyalty to Clinton in advance of the primary.

Meanwhile, the Republican nominee will need a total of 1,237 delegates to win. Trump leads with 743; Cruz is catching up with 545; and Kasich, bless his heart, is still in the running (sort of) with 143. As Michael Wooten of WGRZ, the NBC affiliate in Buffalo, New York, explained, the division of the Republican delegates is a little more complicated, as the majority are "awarded based on the popular vote in each of the state's 27 congressional districts. Three delegates are up for grabs in each district. If a candidate wins at least 50 percent of the vote in a district, he wins all 3 of the delegates. If no candidate gets half the vote, the winner is awarded 2 delegates and the second place finisher gets the other delegate. The remaining 14 delegates are 'at-large' and are picked at the state convention."

The Empire State, certainly, doesn't keep things simple at the polls.