The votes in Bridgeport’s Democratic primary are in, but the process isn’t over yet. A group of city workers spent all day copying envelops from absentee ballots in case John Gomes wants to challenge another victory for Joe Ganim.
The employees did not have to recount any absentee ballots, so nothing about Monday’s process will change the outcome of the election. Ganim beat Gomes by 12 percentage points.
“We want the people of Bridgeport to feel comfortable that their votes are being counted,” Bridgeport City Attorney John Kennelly said.
The workers had to copy envelopes from thousands of absentee ballots. The information will be provided to the campaigns.
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“As an election attorney, you use these to attempt to verify that the people who signed the inner envelopes were actually the voters,” Kennelly said.
Voters seal absentee ballots inside two envelopes. Campaigns can look at the copies to see if the signature on the envelopes matches the one on the ballot application. This is not normally part of the process, but a judge agreed with Gomes' request and ordered this step for Bridgeport.
“Probably because Bridgeport has had issues with the absentee ballots, there are usually some sort of monitors who aren’t involved with the counting, but walk around,” University of New Haven Political Science Professor Patricia Crouse said.
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Bridgeport has had to put several steps in place as part of a court-ordered do-over of its September primary.
The results called into question after a city employee and Ganim supporter was captured on video stuffing absentee ballots into a special drop box.
“That’s why it’s being done here in a public room in the Morton center, where the public is invited to observe,” Kennelly said.
Absentee ballots are counted in private. But with no ballots involved, Monday's process was done in full view of the public at the Margeret E. Morton Government Center.
The city is hoping people will trust the results, but only time will tell if Gomes will question the results again.
“Yeah, it could happen again obviously,” Crouse said.
NBC Connecticut reached out to Gomes for comment, but has not yet heard back. While Gomes could challenge the results again, Crouse said a victory would be hard.
A court ordered monitor added additional scrutiny. Gomes would also need to convince a judge that any wrongdoing might change who won the race.
“Normally courts don’t like to jump into elections. You don’t want to change the outcome based on a court decision,” Crouse said.
Still, Crouse said residents could lose faith in Bridgeport’s election process. The court-ordered redo isn’t the first time the city has faced allegations of election fraud or other problems.
The city, which spends $120,000 on each election, hopes that’s not the case.
