NY democrats aiming to keep Elise Stefanik seat empty as long as possible.

Stefanik has to resign shortly to take her place as UN Ambassador. Special elections are supposed to be held quickly to fill the seat but the Democrat controlled NY State legislatures are aiming to thwart that. She is from a very republican upstate district so highly likely a republican would win the special election.

Lawmakers from both the state Assembly and Senate met Friday to discuss changes to the state’s election law that would allow the governor to delay special elections and push off any pending ones until the June primaries — or even the general election in November. The dead-of-night discussions ostensibly were about how to save time and money by consolidating elections into a single day — but in actual fact appear targeted at the soon-to-be vacated seat of GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik.

Under the current law, when Stefanik officially resigns, Gov. Hochul must declare a special election within 10 days and the election must take place 80 to 90 days after that declaration.

The Democratic-dominated state legislature, however, could rewrite the rules.

***********************

A Hochul spokesman told Gothamist that she “believes it’s critical to increase voter turnout and reduce the cost of election administration and she would support legislation that achieves that goal.”

The proposed election change has Republicans — who control the House with a 218-215 majority, the smallest margin in a century — frothing.

“This is corruption, the corruption of absolute power,” western New York GOP Rep. Nick Langworthy told The Post.

Added Rep. Mike Lawler (R-Rockland County): “This would be an outrageous abuse of power and expose Democrats hypocrisy when it comes to ‘protecting democracy.’ Kathy Hochul should make clear this will not happen.”