Want to win your election-appoint your own relatives to Board of Election

[LynneSin]

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060307/NEWS/603070361/1006

SMYRNA -- The family ties of two newly appointed town Board of Election members sparked a bitter battle on the Town Council about political ethics Monday night, just three months after the legal battle over last year's mayoral race ended.

Tempers frayed and heated words were exchanged before the council voted unanimously to ask Board of Election members Belinda Stiltner and Naomi Wayman to resign their positions -- because they are related to two sitting council members.

Stiltner is Councilman William Pressley's sister, and Wayman is half-sister of Councilman Memphis Evans. The two were selected by Mayor Mark Schaeffer and confirmed last month by the Town Council -- but at least some of the members did not know at the time of the vote that Stiltner and Wayman were related to sitting councilmen.

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Neither Pressley nor Evans is up for re-election this year, but both councilmen are viewed as Schaeffer supporters -- and Schaeffer's foes suspected he was trying to stack the election board in an effort to influence the election.

The board played a critical role last year in Schaeffer's two-vote win over challenger Gene A. Mullen. Mullen won the machine count, but the election board handed the win to Schaeffer when it agreed to count disputed absentee ballots that Schaeffer had distributed to prospective voters, despite a town requirement that ballots could only be handed or mailed to voters by the town manage

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BTW, the article doesn't mention what party that Schaeffer belongs to so I did some additional research:

http://www.delawaregrapevine.com/watch.htm

14th Senate, Delaware City-Middletown-Little Creek

James T. Vaughn Sr., Democratic incumbent, 59.0 percent

Mark G. Schaeffer, Republican, 39.4 percent

Vaughn is the chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, but he’s 77. Schaeffer is the mayor of Smyrna, but he used to be one of those globe-trotting commissioners from the Delaware River & Bay Authority. Advantage Vaughn.