Court to take up ballot dispute
The state Supreme Court on Friday granted an expedited hearing schedule over the disputed election result for the state House seat representing Stratford.
Jim Feehan, of Stratford, is asking Connecticut’s highest court to hear his election appeal on an expedited basis.
Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis concluded on Nov. 30 that the state constitution prohibited the courts from remedying any constitutional violations by ordering a new election.
Feehan sued for a new election after a recount found he lost to Rep. Phil Young by 13 votes. He claimed poll workers at Bunnell High School gave ballots for the 122nd Assembly District to those voting in the 120th Assembly District and that cost him the election. The recount showed that 75 voters at Bunnell High School were denied the right to vote in the 120th Assembly District.
William Bloss, an attorney for Young, successfully argued that the courts don’t have jurisdiction to decide the outcome of state elections and that the responsibility resides with the House of Representatives. There is a procedure in place in the House to have any election appeals heard by a committee of two Republicans and two Democrats.
Feehan’s attorney, Proloy Das, said in his appeal to Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Robinson that there is a conflict between the federal constitution and the state constitution.
“Under the federal constitution, candidates and electors are entitled to the right to vote and to have their votes counted equally,” Das wrote. “Here, voters of the 120th Assembly District were disenfranchised, denied their right to vote for their state representative, and denied equal protection of the law.”
He said the case should be heard on an expedited basis because the legislative session begins Jan. 9 and the residents of the 120th Assembly District are without a “duly elected representative in the House of Representatives.”
When Bellis determined she had no jurisdiction to order a new election, she prohibited Secretary of the State Denise Merrill from certifying the results of the election.
Assistant Attorney General Michael Skold, who represents Merrill, said Thursday in court documents that the state also wants the Supreme Court to take up this case immediately.
In prohibiting Merrill from certifying the election results “the trial court impermissibly — and by its own admission without jurisdiction — has interfered with the proper conduct of the electoral process,” Skold wrote.
He argued that’s one of the reasons the Supreme Court should take up the matter immediately.
“Further, and perhaps most importantly, in seeking to preserve Feehan’s ability to present his claims to the House, the trial court may have unwittingly prevented the House from taking up this dispute at all, and in doing so has created even more uncertainty over when and how this election dispute properly can be resolved,” Skold wrote.