Mankin retains election post

Commissioners voted to keep Dorinda Mankin as Administrator of Elections until April  2013.

Commissioners tabled a motion calling for reinstatement of former administrator Stan Dobson at Monday's (Dec. 9) meeting.

Mankin served as interim administrator dur-ing the recent Presidential election.  She was named to the interim post last July by a 4-0 vote of the Election Commission. At that point, she had three years of experience as Dobson's assistant.

Dobson was appointed Administrator of Elections in 2009 after the Republican Party assumed control of the Tennessee Legislature in 2008 and replaced several Demo-cratic Party-controlled county election comm-issions with Republican majorities. Dobson took over for long-term Administrator Mary Lynn Bush.

County election comm-ission members are appointed by the state election commission.

According to state law under Tennessee Code Annotated, "The state election commission shall appoint, on the first Monday in April of each odd-numbered year, five election commissioners for each county, for terms of two years and until their successors are appointed and qualified.."

  State code calls for three members of the comm-ission to be members of the majority party and two shall be members of the minority party.