Appointment to board of elections rapped as partisan charade

To the Times: Charade – an absurd pretense intended to create a respectable appearance

Travesty – a false, absurd, or distorted representation of something

Or, the Delaware County Council selects the Board of Elections

On Feb. 21, 2018, our County Council chose the Board of Elections, as is their duty under the charter of Delaware County. However, they did so in flagrant violation of, and with contempt for, the rule of law. They did it with no respect for what we in America uphold as the democratic process.

First, some background. In the countywide election held on Nov. 7, 2017, the Democrats swept the county offices for the first time in the history of Delaware County. However, only two of the council’s five seats were up for election, so the Republicans still maintained a 3-2 majority on Council.

The Home Rule Charter of the county states that the party receiving the highest vote total in the most recent election (the Democrats) shall have two representatives on the Board of Elections, and the party with the second highest vote total (the Republicans) shall have one representative. The charter states that the council shall make these appointments.

Now to the point. Each party placed in nomination their preferred two candidates for the two representatives of the Democratic Party. One of the nominees received the nod from both parties. However, each party placed in nomination a different person for the second seat. Republicans on Council objected to the Democratic nominee (which is their right), and the Democrats objected to the Republican nominee (also their right).

The Democrats strongly objected to the Republican nominee, stating that this individual, though a registered Democrat, did not in any way represent the Democratic Party. In fact, this nominee had been asked by Republican County Chairman Andy Reilly to accept the nomination of the Republicans to serve on the board. The Democrats cited this fact in their objections. In addition, a letter was read aloud from Delco Dems Chairman David Landau, who is elected to speak on behalf of the party, specifically saying that the gentlemen proposed by the Republicans did not represent the Democratic Party. Clearly, the Democrats had the right to determine if someone represented their party. Who else could possibly know? The Republicans? The proverbial man in the moon? Yet, the Republicans simply decided they and they alone would make this decision. They acted as if they, rather than the Democrats, had won the last election.

By a 3-2 vote, the Republican nominee was appointed, giving the Republicans two representatives on the Board of Elections, instead of only one as allotted to them by law. This was unethical and unprincipled politics in its finest form. The election was held only four months ago, yet from the gate, the Republicans showed their disdain for the majority of Delaware County’s voters.

As someone who had attended the open council meeting in which these selections were made, I watched dumbfounded as the Republicans fabricated fantastic tales that told how they were clearly following the law, and then proceeded with an almost comic absurdity to twist, distort, bend, and in the end outright ignore the law entirely. All cloaked in a classic display of disingenuous reasoning. Priceless!!

At the least, in a spirit with some measure of honor and goodwill, all so lacking in our politics today but all so necessary, the Republicans should have immediately withdrawn their nominee, and while not accepting the Democrats’ nominee, asked the Democrats for a list of other names, until a candidate acceptable to both parties was found (the Democrats did submit one other name, but that was also rejected). Instead they chose the path of rank partisan advantage. They missed a golden opportunity for a practical, bipartisan solution, one forged in the democratic spirit, and one that could literally have served as a model for the whole country in these bitterly partisan times.

This outrage will not fade from the public mind. Not quite two years from today, on Nov. 5, 2019, the voters whose decision of Nov. 7, 2017, was contemptuously cast to the curb and disregarded will remove Republicans from their remaining three seats on County Council. For this arrogant dismissal of fundamental law, for this blatant violation, Dame Democracy will exact steep payment at the polls.