New guardrails announced for Bridgeport’s do-over primary election

Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas has announced efforts to ensure the upcoming Bridgeport Democratic mayoralty primary does not repeat the problems that resulted in a court-ordered do-over of the vote.

Thomas’ office has released English- and Spanish-language online videos explaining absentee ballot laws. To prevent the possibility malfeasance with the absentee ballots, there will be new ballots with serial numbers specific to the upcoming election, which is designed to prevent individuals from using previously collected ballot applications. Each ballot collected from drop boxes will be individually stamped “drop box,” to differentiate between mailed ballots and those returned in-person.

Thomas’ office will also conduct training on absentee ballot laws and procedures for the newly elected Town Clerk, Charlie Stallworth, and will share absentee ballot procedures with the Bridgeport police department for when they are serving as a designee for the absentee ballot application. Thomas’ office will also work with the accompanying the Registrars of Voters when undertaking supervised absentee ballots and will review absentee ballot applications for atypical patterns. Ballot drop box pick-up procedures on Election Night are updated to ensure all boxes are uniformly locked at 8:00 p.m.

The primary will be overseen by two election monitors – attorney Peggy Reeves, who served as director of elections for the Office of the Secretary of the State from 2011-2019, and Tim DeCarlo, the current Waterbury Registrar of Voters Tim DeCarlo.

The new primary was ordered by Superior Court Judge William Clark following a return that found challenger John Gomes leading with the in-person voting and incumbent Joe Ganim scoring a come-from-behind win via absentee ballots – Ganim scored an identical result four years earlier when he was challenged in the primary by State Sen. Marilyn Moore. Gomes’ campaign sued and produced video evidence of Ganim campaign workers violating state law in the handling of absentee ballots. The do-over primary is scheduled for Jan. 23.

“Election malfeasance can only be addressed if it is reported and investigated, which requires the help of the public,” said Thomas. “In the absence of public education funding, we are working through as many outlets as possible to get knowledge into the hands of the people.”