POUGHKEEPSIE – The Dutchess County Democratic Committee voted on September 27th to replace Marco Caviglia, the Democratic elections commissioner, effective January 1 of next year. Caviglia walked into his office on the next morning and fired Debbie Wright, a Democratic elections administrator. Wright cleaned out her desk, was escorted from the building by Deputy Commissioner Dan Miller, and returned her county credit card to the appropriate office.
Caviglia claims that four recent instances of what he refers to as “incompetence” led to her termination. Among those allegations is the opening of a returned military ballot prior to the election. Wright, with more than two years experience at the board, described the incident as a mistake that she immediately made her supervisor aware of.
Caviglia’s letter to Wright also says “The magnitude of this incompetence was further recognized by Erik Haight’s reaction to the mess upon learning of it by his public statement that whoever is responsible for this ‘should be fired’. Caviglia was referencing an alleged mistake made by Wright pertaining to the counting of ballots for an Assembly district primary race. Haight is the county’s Republican elections commissioner.
Wright contends that her termination was a direct result of her refusal to support Caviglia’s re-election bid along with her refusal to agree to leave the board of elections at the end of the year if he was not reappointed. Wright also serves as the Town of Washington Democratic Committee chairwoman and claims that she chose not to vote for either candidate to avoid an appearance of impropriety.
Wright started working for Caviglia at the board in 2015 and says that her relationship with him took a downturn when Caviglia asked for her support and she declined. She claims that Caviglia created a hostile work environment after that and began to make her feel uncomfortable saying that “Marco is intimidating!”
When reached for comment on this past Friday, Deputy Commissioner Miller said that Caviglia was unavailable for comment and directed Mid-Hudson News to the county attorney’s office. The county attorney’s office cited state election law that says that the commissioner can arbitrarily fire his or her deputy but any other employees have to be terminated by an agreement between both commissioners.
When reached on Friday, Haight said that he was not in favor of the termination and refused to sign off on it. “As far as I’m concerned, she’s still an employee.” Late Friday afternoon Wright received notification that she was to report to work at the Board of Elections on Monday morning, October 1. A call to the office confirmed that Mrs. Wright reported to work Monday morning.
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