A ballot stuffing scandal caught on camera in Bridgeport, Connecticut, is prompting a primary election revote following the city’s general election. Voters will have to cast their votes again in a close mayoral race for Connecticut’s largest city.
Mayor Joe Ganim defeated challenger John Gomes by 251 votes in September’s primary election out of roughly 8,000 votes cast. Ganim won again by 173 votes in last week’s general election.
While Gomes won the machine vote both times, absentee ballots in Ganim’s favor secured his victory.
However, Gomes’ campaign reviewed video surveillance outside of ballot drop boxes and compiled clips as evidence, calling it election tampering.
Gomes filed a lawsuit following the discovery.
Multiple clips captured outside Bridgeport’s ballot drop boxes show several people inserting multiple ballots at once at multiple drop locations.
One woman is seen on camera at 5:30 a.m. appearing to deposit multiple ballots at a time. The same woman returns three days later at 6 a.m. and appears to deposit more ballots
A few days later, the woman returns to the drop box again. This time, she seems to make three deposits.
Gomes’ campaign claims the woman is Wanda Geter-Pataky, a Bridgeport City employee and Democratic Party official who is helping the opposing campaign.
As part of Gomes’ lawsuit, she was asked to testify about her actions in the footage. Geter-Pataky was questioned for 35 minutes but took the fifth. Gerter-Pataky and her attorney refused to answer questions.
Wanda Geter-Pataky is also named in a 2019 state election investigation into ballot fraud.
Eneida Martinez also stood trial in the scandal. Martinez is running for reelection as a city councilwoman and won her reelection bid last week.
Martinez is allegedly identified in the video footage, returning several times appearing to deposit multiple ballots each appearance.
She also pleaded the fifth on the stand.
Superior Court Judge William Clark is calling for another mayoral election that will be held in January.
“The videos are shocking to the court and should be shocking to all the parties,” Clark wrote. “The volume of ballots so mishandled is such that it calls the result of the primary election into serious doubt and leaves the court unable to determine the legitimate result of the primary.”
The judge ruled that an abnormally large number of absentee ballots were cast in certain voting districts.
According to Gomes’ lawyer Bill Bloss, his review of the video surveillance showed no more than 420 people used ballot drop boxes, yet over 1,200 ballots were submitted there.
Bridgeport has experienced fraud before.
The incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim was the city’s mayor from 1991 to 2003 before resigning from his post and spending seven years in prison convicted on federal corruption-related charges.
Ganim was reelected as mayor in 2015 and he has held the position ever since.
Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas filed an order calling for the mayoral primary election revote to be held Jan. 23 — a date agreed on by both parties.
If Ganim wins again then the incumbent will stay in office and the drawn-out election will be over. However, if Gomes wins the primary, then another general election will have to be held.
The proposed date for the potential general election is Feb. 27.
