In our county, and all in Illinois at least...the county board chairman traditionally replaces a board member who resigns or dies, etc. with who the party he belonged to recommends. In our case the county board chairman (a real scalawag) refused the person picked by the democrat party and chose a friend of his who voted democrat last election but was not other than that a democrat. It is very unethical, but it is legal. But, think for a minute...this is local politics...where the differences in beliefs are less contentious generally. What good for the people did our county board chairman do by alienating about half the people in our county? It was a reckless, stupid, arrogant act that I hope will end up with his resigning...
BTW, I had also written a letter to the editor honoring the democrat who resigned. I had served with him for two years on the county board and he is a very very good man. There were issues we didn’t agree on but that does not mean we should hate each other. At the local level there generally is less division than at state and national levels. Indeed, the fellow who resigned (by being harassed by board chairman) and I often discussed how it would be nice not to have political party affiliation for the local offices. That in itself caused more division than ideology differences at the local level.