In Connecticut, Superior Court Judge William F. Clark has ordered that the results of recent mayoral primary election in Bridgeport, the state’s largest city, be overturned and a new election held.
Clark’s decision affirmed that there was merit to accusations that Bridgeport’s incumbent mayor, Joe Ganim, won his election as a result of significant fraud involving absentee ballots. “The volume of evidence in this case, including the many hundreds of hours of video surveillance disclosed and accepted into evidence is, perhaps, unprecedented in the State of Connecticut in an election case,” observes Clark.
After a primary election in September, challenger John Gomes, former chief administrative officer in the Bridgeport city government, was leading Ganim among votes that were cast in person. Ganim then predicted that the absentee ballots would break his way, and he eventually won the absentee votes 1,564 to 861, securing a victory in the primary by just 251 votes.
After the election, Gomes released a video of what appears to be city employee Wanda Geter-Pataky, who is affiliated with Ganim’s campaign, stuffing ballot boxes. On Aug. 30, just over two weeks before September’s primary election, Connecticut’s State Elections Enforcement Commission recommended criminal charges for Geter-Pataky and two other people connected to Ganim’s campaign related to the mishandling of absentee ballots in Bridgeport’s 2019 mayoral primary. Ganim also won that election by just around 300 votes after absentee ballots were counted.
According to Clark’s decision, Geter-Pataky “asserted her privilege against self-incrimination” 71 times when she was
