New York Republicans Elect Dead Guy In Primary Election, Because It's 2016, Isn't It?

Definitely not Red.

In one of those stories that confirms we really are in one weirdass election year, a dead man has won the Republican primary election for a state assembly district in upstate New York. Bill Nojay was elected to the Assembly in 2012, but committed suicide last Friday on the day he was supposed to appear in court on federal embezzlement charges. Nojay was also facing fraud charges in Cambodia. For a state legislator, he really got around!

So, this sort of thing happens sometimes, especially if a death occurs just before an election and there were a lot of mail-in ballots already cast, or if the deceased candidate was running unopposed. But in this case, it's especially weird, since local party leaders urged people to vote for the dead guy, who ended up winning by about a 1000-vote margin. Nojay was a Donald Trump supporter who had campaigned on his strong backing for the Second Amendment, which certainly guaranteed he had the tools he needed to do the job of killing himself. Fat lot of good he'll be in an uprising against a tyrannical out of control federal government now. (Is that mean of us to say?)

Nojay's opponent Rick Milne, the still alive mayor of Honeoye Falls, wasn't helped in the election by running against Nojay's little corruption charges. You'd think the guy who could literally still move might stay ahead.

Ah, but here's the "Ohhhhh" detail: By giving their votes to the dead incumbent instead of the live reformer, the voters of the district have handed the choice of a replacement candidate for the general election to Republican Party leaders in the three counties included in the 133rd Assembly District -- which is why the party pushed for voters to re-elect the dead guy. With the primary -- and Milne -- out of the way, the three party chairs will meet to pick their own preferred candidate to go up against the winner of the Democratic primary, Barbara Baer, who will be beaten by the as-yet unnamed candidate, because the district is overwhelmingly Republican. Hell, maybe they'll pick Nojay again just to get into the history books.

Milne told the Associated Press that while he has asked the three county party leaders to pick him, he's not getting his hopes up, saying the "powers that be" had made a substantial effort, including robocalls to voters, to elect the late Mr. Nojay:

"They really did some things in the past few days that were in poor taste in my opinion to sway the vote," he said.

Milne also said he'd run a "clean and solid race" and was disappointed by the outcome following Nojay's suicide. "I really believe we would have fared better with Mr. Nojay still alive," he said, While most candidates would probably consider having a heartbeat to be a definite electoral advantage, it looks like in this case, Milne's continued metabolic functioning was simply not enough to overcome his stiff opposition.

And the dead guy's supporters? They're making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS!

[ [New York / NYT / NBC New York ]