Bridgeport’s election officials are quite a mystery. Where did the 9 important votes go? This mistake could take 1 race to court.
It all has to do with the very close Democratic primary for the Connecticut House of Representatives. On election night, City Councilman Marcus Brown led with just five votes. But when the votes were tallied again on Tuesday, election officials were nine votes short. This change meant that Brown lost the race – by just one vote.
“They were duped,” Brown said. “They didn’t get fair and free elections.”
Brown now wants the judges to hold a whole new primary.
“We’re going to ask the judge to either declare the head moderator to look for nine votes or to annul this entire election,” he said. For some reason I’m one vote less than him and all the missing votes happen to be mine. “
City election officials, joined by state observers, spent an hour searching for bags of ballots of other races.
A Democratic registrar of voters in Bridgeport said in a recount video posted online, “I believe there are probably nine ballots out there. We’ll bring those bags and open them up.” increase.”
Despite the discrepancy in vote totals, the election moderators accredited last night’s race. Brown’s opponent, longtime state legislator Jack Hennessy, is in favor of the result.
“We won,” he said. “Election observers who were there to observe this did not question the final outcome.”
But in the video, election monitor John Chase raised a red flag. Chase suggested that his original vote count may have been too high.
“It’s an amazing disparity,” he said of the vote gap.
Both sides agree on one thing. They blame Howard, the Democratic registrar of voters, for the debacle.
In a call Wednesday, Howard said:
Brown has until next Tuesday, two weeks after the primary, to file his lawsuit.