Republican questions UConn student votes, election workers rebuke complaint

After losing one of the closer races in the state, Republican Christopher Reddy wants election regulators to take a closer look at his race.

Reddy has filed a complaint with the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC), raising concerns about how Mansfield election workers handle an Election Day registration surge of University of Connecticut students.

“Our goal here is to make sure that there is confidence in the election results and the election process,” Reddy said in an interview Wednesday.

But critics, including Mansfield Republicans and election workers, said Reddy’s complaint has no merit.

“We are disappointed that Chris Reddy and his campaign are challenging the validity of Tuesday’s election and attempting to disqualify the vote of thousands of Mansfield citizens,” the Mansfield Democratic and Republican town committees said in a joint statement.

Reddy questions whether Mansfield’s election officials properly vetted the registrations of 1,139 people, mostly UConn students, who registered on Election Day. The town processed a total 2,522 same day registrations between Election Day and 14 days of early voting.

Flexer beat Reddy by 589 votes and secured more than 70% of the votes cast in Mansfield.

While Reddy raised questions about the vetting process, Mansfield Democratic Town Committee Chairman Ben Shaiken notes Reddy’s hasn’t identified a single registration that was done improperly or that broke state law.

“His accusations are completely baseless and they're just sour grapes, he lost the election fair and square,” Shaiken said.

The town’s two registrars, elected positions for both a Democrat and Republican, issued a joint statement saying they followed proper procedures. They said they stand by the results.

But Reddy maintains he wants a second look, raising questions in the complaint about efforts by Democrats to turn out voters.

He notes Mansfield Democrats hung campaign materials on dorm room doors, offered rides to the polls and provided pizza.

Shaiken said those are routine efforts parties take to get out voters. He acknowledged he and candidates handed out pizza next to a 75-foot boundary meant to prohibit campaigning inside polling places.

But he said his candidates never crossed into the 75-foot buffer and said Reddy and members of his campaign were also regularly in that spot during early voting.

“Our job is to help democrats get elected in Mansfield,” he said.

Reddy’s complaint did point to one specific incident: a campaign staffer noticed an election worker “inside a conference room with the door closed and shades drawn,” allegedly while handling ballots.

When asked for proof of what Reddy thought the worker was doing, he declined to provide specifics.

“I don’t really want to comment any further on that because it’s not my information to provide,” he said.

SEEC said it couldn’t confirm if the complaint was even filed until the commission votes to open an investigation. Its next meeting is Nov. 13.

SEEC does not have the authority to discard votes, change an outcome or order a new election. That can only be done by a judge.

Reddy said he hasn’t decided yet whether he will file a lawsuit formally challenging the results.