Editor's note: Originally published April 19, 2016, to coincide with New York Presidential Primary Day. This year's primary elections will be held on Thursday, Sept. 13.

On primary morning, voters across New York will stop at their polling stations on their way to work or school and find to their surprise that they're closed.

It is a certainty of Primary Day, just as some dejected voters will call their elections boards demanding to know why their polling station hours were changed only to be told that, in fact, they weren't.

Unlike for general elections, when polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. everywhere in New York, state law cuts short voting times in primary elections by six hours in upstate, central and much of western New York, where polls are open from noon to 9 p.m.

More:What you need to know for NY's primary elections: Contests, candidates, voting

Exceptions are New York City, and the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Erie, where polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. like they do for all elections everywhere.

The law is a peculiarity that vexes early-rising voters and elections boards alike, not to mention reinforces stereotypes of downstate superiority.

"The varying hours of operating for polling places strike at the heart of one's voting rights," state Supreme Court Justice Lawrence Kahn wrote in finding the law unconstitutional in 1982. "A farmer in his pickup truck is entitled to the same opportunity to vote in a primary as a subway commuter."

Kahn, who is now a federal judge, was right. That hasn't mattered for years, though, because he was reversed on appeal and the state's highest court upheld that extending voting hours for some New Yorkers and not others was "reasonable."

But the law is ripe for another challenge in a year in which New York is unusually relevant in the presidential primaries and voter turnout is expected to be higher than normal.

Monroe County has 299,632 eligible primary voters (173,746 Democrats and 125,886 Republicans), including 7,667 who enrolled in the last six months. A third of Democrats and a fifth of Republicans turned out in 2008, the last presidential primary of importance.

Elections commissioners have two concerns if turnout on Tuesday mimics that of previous primary states. The first is overcrowding at polling sites.

"This is a whole different year," said Monroe County Republican Elections Commissioner David Van Varick said. "This is a whole different set of circumstances, and (the shorter hours) create concerns for us regarding the volume of voters."

The second concern is that thousands of people who may be unfamiliar with primary voting hours arrive at the polls before noon, get discouraged, and never return.

In declaring the law unconstitutional, Kahn wrote that shorter polling hours can have the unintended effect of minimizing the significance of an election and may give an advantage to candidates who do well in areas where polls are open six hours longer.

"It is time to let it go," Monroe County Democratic Elections Commissioner Thomas Ferrarese said of the practice. "I am not opposed to presidential primaries being open longer. To be honest with you, I'd support it wholeheartedly."

The law dates to 1909, and originally set hours of noon to 9 p.m. for primary elections everywhere except for New York City, where the hours were 3 to 10 p.m.

In 1973, the law was changed to extend the hours in New York City from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. These extended hours were later applied to Nassau in 1977, to Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland in 1981, to Erie in 1982, and, eventually, to Orange, Putnam and Ulster. (Ulster was removed from the mix in 1997.)

Kahn was one of two state Supreme Court justices in 1982 to find the law unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated the equal protection clause. State lawmakers reasoned the changes were necessary to accommodate commuters and alleviate overcrowding at polling stations in "bedroom communities."

His ruling in Corning v. Albany County Board of Elections set statewide voting hours of noon to 9 p.m., while the decision of Justice Samuel Green, of Erie County, in a second case, Barone v. Carey, set uniform hours of 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Corning case was appealed first and the subsequent findings of appellate courts applied to both cases.

What it came down to was that commuters downstate and around Buffalo deserved more time to vote than other New Yorkers — 40 percent more time.

Tell that to the guy at work griping about his polling station being closed.

David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at dandreatta@gannett.com.