Rare competition tonight for Dem Election Commissioner’s job

The Columbia County Democratic Committee is meeting tonight, and on the agenda is whom they will recommend to the Board of Supervisors for the job of their party’s Election Commissioner.

But unlike most other two-year cycles, this time there is fierce competition for the job.

Sources indicate that both the existing Democratic Commissioner, Virginia Martin, and party vice chair Erin Stamper are vying for the position, and have been lobbying for support among Committee members.

In the past few decades, this site knows of no instance of any competition for these positions in either party, at least none which ever became public.

That position is currently part-time, paying around $30,000 a year. But there is some talk of the Supervisors bumping both the Dem and GOP positions up to full-time.

Stamper filled in at the Board of Elections for the last few weeks of this election cycle, after Greenport’s Jimmy Dolan abruptly and mysteriously was either let go, or resigned.

In addition, some have floated the names of Maria Lull, a Republican who ran on the Democratic line for Supervisor but lost by a wide margin in Chatham earlier this month: and of former party chair Peter Bujanow, Who similarly ran for Supervisor in Kinderhook and lost badly there. Additionally, the name former Gillibrand staffer Phil Giltner has been bandied about.

Indications are that Stamper has the backing of party chair Keith Kanaga and most Democratic members of the Board of Supervisors, while Martin retains some support among older Dem party members.

By a long-standing “gentleman’s agreement,” the Board of Supervisors typically takes each party’s recommendation for the job without question, but this arrangement seems to have broken down a bit in recent years.