GOP move angers parties

Rensselaer County shift a strategy for November

Rensselaer County Republicans are moving party supporters into the Working Families Party from the Independence Party in an effort to offset Democratic strength in November when County Executive Steve Mclaughlin runs for re-election, officials in the three parties confirmed Monday. The move has angered WFP and Democratic leaders.

The Independence, Green and other minor parties’ failure to secure enough votes in the 2020 presidential election cost them their spots on this year’s ballot and threatens to derail the longtime county GOP strategy of running its candidates on multiple lines.

“We’re working on that now,” County GOP Chairman John Rustin said about the voter registration effort.

Rustin said county Republicans are discussing what steps to take. Republicans at the local level said Independence voters who have family and other ties to the GOP have been approached by party operative Richard Crist and completed change of registration forms that are expected to be filed with the county Board of Elections at a later date.

“There are more important things right now than politics. That’s what we’re focused on,” said Crist, the county GOP’S preeminent operative and director of operations for the county.

The Independence Party line accounted for nearly 10 percent, or 2,008 votes, of the 20,685 votes Mclaughlin received in his 2017 victory over Democratic candidate Andrea Smyth. Mclaughlin won the election by 1,090 votes.

A change in a voter’s party enrollment must be filed by Feb. 14 in order to be valid for the person to cast a ballot in the June 22 primary. Having sympathetic minor party members allows operatives to collect signatures to force write-in primaries in an attempt to win the ballot position.

Winning a Working Families Party primary by just a few votes can translate to more than 1,000 in the general election, said Phil Markham, the Rensselaer County Working Families leader. In 2017 the party line con

tributed 1,632 votes to Smyth’s total of 19,595.

The Working Families Party ’s progressive values aren’t shared by Republicans who use “a loophole in the election law to put their own candidates on the ballot,” Markham said.

“It’s no surprise to learn that Republican operatives who are on the county payroll are attempting to take something that isn’t theirs by… taking advantage of people who don’t know better, or worse,” Markham said.

County Democratic Chairman Michael Monescalchi said, “The local Republicans are running scared and will even go as far as to infiltrate a party with whom they have major philosophical differences.”

Republicans throughout the county have concentrated in the past on securing up to as many as five party lines. This year only the Democratic, Republican, Working Families and Conservative parties have places on the ballot.

The county has 35,352 Democrats compared to 26,357 Republicans, according to the latest state Board of Elections enrollment figures. The Republicans also are outnumbered by the county’s unaffiliated voters. There were 8,291 Independence, 999 Working Families Party and 4,174 Conservatives, according to state enrollment tallies.

Registration forms began flowing out of the Rensselaer County Board of Elections last week, said Democratic Elections Commissioner Edward Mcdonough.

“We won’t see any returned until the 12th or 13th of February,” Mcdonough said about an anticipated last-minute filing by county Republicans.