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The county's Board of Elections said the deadline for the seat to be on this November's election ballot was Sept. 20, two days before Farrell handed in his resignation. That leaves three options for the seat including leaving it open, allowing the Legislature to appoint someone until the next election cycle or holding a special election.

This year was the first year in the county's history that the Democrats held a majority in the Legislature. With the District 4 seat empty, there will be eight Democrats and five Republicans. But both Chairman of the Legislature Keith Batman and Minority Leader Michael Didio do not believe a special election is the answer.

"That's a lot of time involved," Didio said of a special election. "This is not a good time to really do it."

Didio said legislators are working on the county budget among other issues that will need to be the focus of their time.

Besides the time spent, Batman said he would not want to incur election expenses for the county, which he said could be thousands of dollars. He also said the special election would likely be held during the December holiday season. But, he does not want to leave the seat open, either.

"We can just hold it open until the election," he said, "but we won't do that. I can't imagine doing that because we don't want the people in Brutus to not be represented."

While it's not definitive what will happen with the fourth district's seat, Batman said he's hoping to sit down with members of both parties and come up with a potential person to appoint. He's also considering appointing a new chair to the Ways and Means Committee, a position Farrell had held, rather than having Vice Chair Aileen McNabb-Coleman take it on.

Batman said his goal is to have a "reasonable plan" for the seat announced at the full county Legislature meeting, which will take place at 5 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 27 at the Cayuga County Office Building's Sixth Floor Chambers.