Ruling expected in primary challenge.
Judge may decide Thursday after weeks of testimony
BRIDGEPORT — With only days left before the scheduled citywide mayoral election, Superior Court Judge Barry Stevens on Thursday is expected to rule on the monthlong challenge to the Democratic primary for which Mayor Joe Ganim claimed victory.
The decision will culminate nearly three weeks of testimony aimed at persuading Stevens to order a new primary. If he agrees with the three plaintiffs, backed by local activists Bridgeport Generation Now votes and PT Partners, it would likely threaten the scheduled Nov. 5 election and immediately force the case before the Connecticut Supreme Court.
While the plaintiffs called witnesses to testify to a variety of irregularities and alleged illegalities in Bridgeport’s absentee ballots, defense attorneys charged that they did not prove that the outcome of the election was put in doubt.
Absentee ballots accounted for Ganim’s tight 270vote victory over state Sen. Marilyn Moore. Moore had won the machine vote.
Deputy City Attorney John Bohannon Jr., assisted by Hartfordbased attorney John Droney, stressed that the narrow reading of state law limits the case to whether the final count of the vote was affected. “Lost in the bluster and grandstanding” their final brief states, “is that there is no evidence to prove a ‘mistake in the count of votes cast’ in the primary.”
Attorneys Prerna Rao, Jonathan Shapiro and Brian Ward charged that wideranging violations of state election requirements should tip the results in the favor of plaintiffs Beth Lazar, Annette Goodrich and Vanessa Liles.
“This failure to comply with our election statutes resulted in a mistake in the count of a vote in that votes were included in the count that should not have been counted,” Ward, Rao and Shapiro wrote.
The case was filed on Sept. 23. Evidence includes 74 exhibits for the plaintiffs and 74 for the defendants. The defendants included
Ganim and other city officials.
The suit was filed in the wake of Hearst Connecticut Media’s report on election illegalities and irregularities that prompted Secretary of the State Denise Merrill to refer the election to the State Election Enforcement Commission. The SEEC has an active probe, including a review of thousands of pages of city records.
While Ganim received 4,337 votes at the city’s 22 polling places to 4,721 for Moore, the mayor enjoyed a more than 3to1 margin in absentee ballots, 967 to 313. The final total pending the court action was 5,304 votes for Ganim and 5,034 for Moore, a plurality of 270 ballots.