Erie County Democrats "elect" Zellner as party boss

Erie County Legislature Chief of Staff Jeremy Zellner has won the race for Erie County Democratic Chairman by 158,000 weighted votes to about 115,000 over Cheektowaga Democratic Chairman Frank Max.

After the results of the chairmanship vote were announced, John Flynn of the Town of Tonawanda indicated that he was withdrawing from the Elections Commissioner's race in favor of incumbent Dennis Ward. 

Reportedly, NYS Democratic Co-Chair Stephanie Miner played a role in verifying the results. Among Max supporters on hand were Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, former Mayor Tony Masiello,  and Empire State Development Corp. Exec Sam Hoyt.

Actually Max received a greater amount of ballots cast in his favor but once the weighted vote was totaled, Zellner was named the victor.

Several things are being questioned by the Max campaign: one was that one of the ballot boxes was suspected of being "tainted" in the counting room by the NYS Democratic Committee after a volunteer was reportedly seen stuffing multiple ballots in the box; but a bigger issue is the way committee people voted.

There were two separate weighted vote schemes devised by Dennis Ward. Some committee members voted via the Democratic Enrollment in their district, while others were forced to vote on the Gubernatorial numbers. The decision of which way it went seemed to be based on how it favored Ward’s candidate – Zellner and Ward himself.

Meantime Cheektowaga Democratic Chairman Max is not conceding. Instead, his campaign says it will file suit on Monday in court, charging Elections Commissioner Dennis Ward with illegally manipulating the weighted vote to elect Zellner, and himself as elections Commissioner