Election 2019

With less than a month to go before Election Day, East Hampton voters have some difficult choices to make. The toughest among them, however, might be on the town trustees portion of the ballot. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: It’s high time the venerable elected body with nine members adopted staggered terms.

The first debate between candidates for East Hampton Town supervisor and town board — at the East Hampton Library on Saturday — was a mostly civil discussion, the three incumbent Democrats fending off criticism from their challengers while making a case for their own re-election.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons has invited the public to three candidate debates it will host this month for town and county elected offices.

The East Hampton Group for Good Government, a nonpartisan organization that promotes awareness of local issues through public discussions of ideas, will host a first debate between candidates for East Hampton Town supervisor and town board on Saturday at 4 p.m. at the East Hampton Library.

For those who remember David Gruber’s early involvement in East Hampton politics, his alliance this election year with the local Republican Party might seem an unlikely pairing.

Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day, and the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons will use the opportunity to explain to people across the South Fork where, when, and how to register for the Nov. 5 election.

For East Hampton voters who have not followed the bumpy and bruising run up to the November town election, the lack of choices will be surprising. Notably, there will be no Republican candidates for supervisor or town board because the county party would not sign off on the local party’s choice of nominees, a requirement since none of them are registered Republicans.

Decrying “this headache called politics,” Dell Cullum, an East Hampton Town Trustee who was elected in 2017 on the Democratic Party line but was not chosen by the party to be on its slate this year, said this week that he would not run for re-election.

Members of the EH Fusion Party, a group of Republican, Independence Party, and Democratic candidates seeking to appear on a unified ticket on the Nov. 5 ballot, experienced another setback last week when a United States District judge for the Eastern District of New York dismissed the lawsuit it had brought against the Suffolk County Board of Elections and its Democratic and Republican commissioners.

Democratic voters pushed back against East Hampton Reform Demo­crats’ efforts to upend the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee’s picks for town justice and town trustee in Tuesday’s primary.

Democratic voters pushed back against East Hampton Reform Democrats' efforts to upend the Democratic Committee's picks for town justice and town trustee in Tuesday's primary, with Andrew Strong winning the justice nomination and Reform Democrats' choices trailing in the trustee race.

In a rare political occurrence, a sitting Republican justice is seeking the Democratic nomination to remain on the East Hampton Town bench.

Lisa R. Rana, who has Republican, Independence, and new EH Fusion Party support, will face Andrew Strong in a Democratic Primary on Tuesday. Whatever the outcome in the primary, Ms. Rana’s place on the ballot for the November general election is secure.

In an interview last week, she said that she decided to try to force the primary to give Democrats a choice for town justice.