How the battle for absentee ballots defined the Bridgeport election

When Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim arrived at his Election Night party in early September, he was told that he was trailing his Democratic primary challenger, John Gomes.

Ganim, who was running for his third term as mayor since serving a federal prison sentence on corruption charges, took to the stage at a nightclub in downtown Bridgeport and explained to a small crowd of supporters that he was likely to lose the vote count from the polls, which had just closed around an hour before.

But Ganim and his team were unfazed, with several people openly promising a decisive victory once the absentee ballots were counted.

“Primaries are close. That’s just the way it is,” Ganim said. “But we are confident at this point, because of the hard work, because of the commitment, because of the support we received throughout the city of Bridgeport.”

There was reason for that confidence: Several of the people who surrounded Ganim on that stage had spent months laying the groundwork for many of the absentee votes cast in the city.

Documents reviewed by The Connecticut Mirror show that just one of Ganim’s supporters, Wanda Geter-Pataky, spent four months traversing parts of Bridgeport, helping voters fill out at least 537 absentee ballot applications ahead of the election, which was decided by 251 votes.

Geter-Pataky, who is the vice chairwoman of Bridgeport’s Democratic party, has since found herself at the center of an ongoing election scandal that has led to allegations of widespread ballot fraud and a new court-ordered primary between Ganim and Gomes.

[RELATED: Bridgeport primary election overturned; new vote ordered]

She became the frequent subject of nightly news broadcasts after she was captured on city surveillance footage allegedly depositing stacks of absentee ballots into a drop box ahead of the primary.

But a months-long investigation by the CT Mirror shows, for the first time, just how involved Geter-Pataky and many other Bridgeport political operatives were in driving absentee votes ahead of the primary — and the lengths to which they went to influence that election.

To understand how the absentee process works in Bridgeport, the CT Mirror analyzed more than 4,300 absentee ballot applications that were filed ahead of the primary and submitted as evidence in court. Anyone who wants to receive an absentee ballot has to fill out an application.

That data reveals a battle for absentee votes that played out door-to-door in parts of Bridgeport, especially in the city’s 136th, 137th and 138th voting districts. It also highlights how the city’s rival Democratic camps often targeted the same voters, especially in Bridgeport’s low-income apartments and elderly housing units.

“We recognize that absentee ballots in Bridgeport have caused confusion and commotion,” Ganim wrote in response to questions from the CT Mirror.

“I have stated multiple times, and requested oversight from the State to assist, we need a reformed and transparent process that ensures voter access, voter confidence and accountability,” Ganim wrote. “While my opponent has remained silent in acknowledging his own irregularities, I heard our voters and have taken the lead and making these efforts in my own campaign to meet the needs of our residents.”

Complaints about absentee ballot fraud have plagued Bridgeport elections for years, but the absentee ballot applications from the Democratic primary illustrate just how relentless the competition for absentee votes has become in Connecticut’s largest city.

The scramble to sign up absentee voters for this year’s primary began in earnest in early June, and the various campaigns were so persistent that at least 370 Bridgeport residents eventually had two or more absentee applications submitted in their names.

Since then, it’s been widely alleged in public, in court and in written complaints that political operatives, on both sides, illegally influenced the absentee process by helping voters to fill out their ballots or by illegally delivering those ballots to drop boxes in the city.

The judge who oversaw the election lawsuit this fall determined that the primary was marred by what he described as “shocking” evidence of “blatant” ballot harvesting.

But the CT Mirror’s reporting shows that the efforts to influence the election started long before voters obtained their ballots and continued even after some Bridgeport residents cast their votes.

Several Bridgeport residents who received absentee ballots ahead of the primary told the CT Mirror they don’t remember signing an application. And one voter who reviewed several applications that were submitted under his name said someone forged his signature on one of the three documents.

The CT Mirror also uncovered instances in which several candidates and political operatives helped to disqualify ballots that were already cast so people could obtain a second ballot — potentially allowing them to change their votes — ahead of the election.

The individuals who took that step alleged, in writing, that the replacement ballots were necessary because Geter-Pataky and other “Ganim operatives” either directed people how to vote or “stole” their earlier ballots.

Alleged manipulation

The thousands of documents reviewed by the CT Mirror show that Geter-Pataky, who backed Ganim and the other candidates endorsed by the local Democratic Party, assisted more people in filling out absentee ballot applications than anyone else.

She signed at least 12% of the applications that were submitted, despite the fact that records indicate she never registered to distribute those forms, as state law requires.

[What are Connecticut's absentee ballot rules? We've outlined them here]

More than 10,800 people cast a vote in Bridgeport's primary, according to the Secretary of the State's office, with 2,470 — more than 22% of the votes — coming from absentee ballots.

It is legal in Connecticut for candidates, campaign workers and political party leaders to distribute applications for absentee ballots, to assist voters in filling out that initial paperwork, and to deliver the completed applications back to local election officials.

But the outsized role that those people play in the absentee process in Bridgeport is now under intense scrutiny because of the surveillance footage that captured Geter-Pataky and others allegedly depositing piles of ballots into drop boxes.

Geter-Pataky and her attorney, John Gulash, did not respond to emailed questions for this story.

But State Superior Court Judge William Clark, who ordered a new election in January, said there was enough evidence presented in court for him to conclude that Geter-Pataky violated the state’s election laws. And he determined that the actions taken by her and others “seriously undermined” the primary.

“The issue in this case is not the applications or even the push to deliver absentee votes. The issue is whether that advocacy crossed a line of the established laws,” Clark wrote in his opinion.

Since the election, at least 21 complaints have been filed with the State Elections Enforcement Commission alleging absentee ballot fraud was committed by several individuals during the primary, including Geter-Pataky, who was previously referred for potential criminal charges due to her actions during Bridgeport’s 2019 primary.

Nobody involved in the election or named in the recent SEEC complaints has been criminally charged. But the allegations of absentee ballot fraud have continued to pile up.

In response, Republicans in Connecticut’s General Assembly have advocated for changes to the state’s election system, including banning the ballot drop boxes that were first put into use during the pandemic.

[RELATED: No consensus on a legislative response to Bridgeport investigation]

Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School who previously worked with the Connecticut General Assembly on redistricting efforts, said the problem doesn’t lie with expanding the ways people can vote. He said the problem, in cases like Bridgeport, is the partisan officials who seek to twist those systems to gain an advantage in elections.

“Encouraging people to vote is a good thing,” he said. “It’s just a matter of making sure that the voters vote and that they’re not manipulated by candidates or parties.”

Rules or recommendations?

Anyone can obtain an absentee ballot application in Connecticut, either by downloading the form online or by ordering it from their local town clerk.

Yet in Bridgeport, very few voters took the steps necessary to request their own applications.

Instead, a small army of political operatives distributed the applications to voters, either in person or through the mail.

In this year’s primary, more than 95% of the absentee ballots that were mailed to voters stemmed from applications that were taken out in bulk by campaigns and other political operations.

Nearly 10,000 applications were requested ahead of the election by roughly 50 people who handed out the forms in person. Those people included numerous candidates for local elected office, paid campaign staffers for Ganim and Gomes and several members of Bridgeport’s Democratic Town Committee.

Gemeem Davis, one of the directors at Bridgeport Generation Now Votes, a nonprofit organization that has advocated for changes to the city’s election processes in recent years, also requested 19,000 applications to mail directly to eligible voters.

The Ganim and Gomes campaigns said they distributed applications in two different ways: by signing up people they met while door knocking or by providing an application to people who called their campaign headquarters.

The Gomes campaign said it did not target anyone in particular. But Ganim said that many of the people who received applications from his campaign were "seniors and persons with medical conditions or mobility challenges.”

Distributing dozens or even hundreds of absentee applications is legal, but state law requires anyone circulating more than five applications to follow several basic rules, such as registering in advance with the town clerk and tracking which voters they targeted.

According to records reviewed by the CT Mirror, Geter-Pataky did not register with the town clerk to handle absentee applications during the primary.

Instead, she distributed applications that were signed out of the clerk’s office by Democratic state Rep. Marcus Brown, Democratic Town Committee member Stephen Eaton, and Alfredo Castillo, a city councilman who was also referred by the SEEC this year for potential criminal charges stemming from his actions during Bridgeport’s 2019 municipal primary.

Brown, Eaton and Castillo also failed to file reports by election day detailing which voters they provided with applications, according to court records.

Castillo and Eaton, who signed out the majority of the applications that Geter-Pataky assisted with, did not return phone calls or an email for this story.

Brown, who won a seat in the state legislature last year after serving on the Bridgeport city council, said he was not certain how Geter-Pataky came into possession of 26 of the applications that he signed out of the clerk’s office. But he said someone may have picked the forms up off a clipboard that he left at the campaign headquarters.

Brown also said he didn’t file a final report detailing who received his absentee applications because he did not personally distribute any of those forms to voters.

The instructions that Brown and others received when they obtained the applications said they should submit a final report, “even if you don’t distribute any of the applications.”

But Brown said that specific language is not in state law and, as a result, he viewed it only as a “recommendation.” If election officials want him to file that report, Brown said, the law should be clarified to require it.

The records reviewed by the CT Mirror show the clerk did not receive reports from other prominent Bridgeport politicians, as well.

Among them were Aidee Nieves, who served as the president of Bridgeport’s city council, and Gomes, who ran for mayor this year after serving in Ganim’s administration.

Nieves did not respond to emailed questions about her work during the election or why she did not file a final report detailing what happened to her 830 applications.

Gomes signed out 400 applications from the clerk's office, but his campaign manager said he relied on his staffers to document what happened to those forms.

"John did not fail to follow the law," said Christine Bartlett-Josie, Gomes' campaign director. "The campaign submitted full report logs to the town clerk before the date of the primary."

She said Gomes' name is not on that paperwork because the forms were completed by the individuals who distributed the applications to voters.

'That is not my signature'

Gerry Rhodes, a 65-year-old Democratic voter and Bridgeport resident, had more than a few people trying to sign him up for an absentee ballot this summer.

Rhodes, who lives in the Fireside Apartments, a public housing complex in the city’s northeast corner, is one of the hundreds of Bridgeport residents who had multiple absentee applications submitted in their names ahead of the primary.

Records reviewed by the CT Mirror show three different absentee ballot applications were filed on Rhodes’ behalf, each of which purportedly includes his signature. One was signed in June, one in July and another in August.

Rhodes told the CT Mirror he remembers signing two of those applications, including one that arrived in the mail and another that was distributed by Jazmarie Melendez, a local city council candidate.

But Rhodes said he doesn’t know where the third application came from.

The signature on that application doesn’t match his handwriting, he said. And Rhodes doesn’t remember meeting Kevin Monks, the city council candidate who distributed that form.

“Look at the signature. That is not my signature. He was close, but it’s not mine,” said Rhodes, who has frequently voted absentee in recent years.

Rhodes was suspicious about other aspects of the application as well, including the portion of the form that claimed he needed an absentee ballot because he would be out of town on Election Day.

“I just had a kidney transplant a few months ago. There’s no way I’m going out of town or anywhere other than my home and the hospital,” Rhodes said. “There’s no way I’d say that.”

Monks, who is also a city employee, told the CT Mirror that he was “shocked” that anyone would claim he forged their signature.

“That doesn’t seem possible to me. I didn’t sign his signature, no way, no how,” Monks said. “I did not sign anyone’s signature.”

'A broken civic culture'

The data collected by the CT Mirror also shows that many completed absentee applications were not submitted to the town clerk for weeks or months, despite a state law that requires the signed forms to be returned to local election officials “forthwith.”

Anyone who takes out more than five absentee applications receives a packet of rules that informs them not to keep completed applications and instructs them to return the signed forms “without delay.” But political operatives in Bridgeport have a history of ignoring those rules, according to court testimony.

The CT Mirror submitted written questions to Bridgeport’s Town Clerk asking about how the office handles absentee ballot applications, but through their attorney, city officials declined to comment because of the ongoing investigations.

Asked if the Ganim campaign instructed people to hold off on submitting the applications as some sort of strategy, a campaign official responded: "No."

Christina Resto, the assistant town clerk, was questioned in court in October about the rules surrounding absentee applications and why so many political operatives in the city seemingly fail to follow the rules when handling those forms.

Resto explained to the judge that the clerk’s office is not in the habit of policing how political operatives use the absentee applications or whether they promptly turn in those forms after they are signed by voters.

Court testimony from another election lawsuit filed after the 2019 Bridgeport mayoral race shows political campaigns in Bridgeport sometimes coordinate which homes and apartments each operative visits, and they often stockpile signed applications at their election headquarters until the paperwork is turned over to the clerk’s office in large batches.

The leaders of Bridgeport Generation Now Votes, which helped voters bring that election lawsuit in 2019, said campaign operatives in the city likely hold onto the completed applications either to count how many absentee votes they might be able to rely on in the election, or to prevent their opponents from immediately learning which voters they are in contact with.

Davis and Callie Gale Heilmann, the other co-director of Bridgeport Generation Now Votes, said they requested 19,000 absentee applications ahead of the primary this year so they could mail the forms to a larger number of eligible Democratic voters in Bridgeport.

They took that step, they said, in an effort to lessen the voters’ reliance on the people who were going door-to-door and to cut down on instances of coercion and fraud. They also pointed out that they followed state law by registering with the clerk and turning in a detailed report about which voters they mailed the applications to.

Both Davis and Heilmann blamed the current election scandal in Bridgeport on the political culture in the city and the failure of state and local officials to properly respond to previous allegations of absentee ballot fraud.

Heilmann pointed out that the judge who oversaw the 2019 election lawsuit advocated for state lawmakers to consider banning anyone associated with a candidate, campaign or political party from circulating absentee ballot applications. And she noted that the legislature failed to respond to that call to action.

“The underlying thing is that we have a broken civic culture in Bridgeport that is rooted in corruption,” Heilmann said. “Breaking laws, being unethical, and living in the gray is embedded.”

“People know they are doing the wrong thing, but they all believe that they won’t get caught. They all believe they won’t be held accountable. And the reason for that is because it has gone on for so long,” she added.

Cancelling ballots

Nowhere was the contest for absentee votes more cutthroat than Bridgeport’s 138th district in the city’s northeast corner, where the mayoral contest played out alongside a competitive race for two city council seats.

Monks and his running mate Samia Suliman, who were endorsed by the Democratic Town Committee in that council race, collectively signed up 342 people to vote absentee, according to the CT Mirror’s analysis.

Meanwhile, Melendez and Maria Pereira, who won the council race on the strength of absentee votes, assisted people in filling out a combined 409 applications.

The battle for absentee votes in that district, however, didn’t end once people received their ballots — or even after they cast their votes.

Documents analyzed by the CT Mirror show Pereira, Melendez and another political operative, Abraham Duque, helped at least 10 people in the 138th district to fill out and sign forms that instructed local election officials to toss out ballots that were already cast and to issue new ballots to those voters.

Those forms, which were printed on green paper, are meant to be used by voters to replace an absentee ballot that has been damaged or lost or in cases where voters made an innocent mistake on their ballot.

Hartford’s Deputy Town Clerk Eric Lusa, for example, said his office received fewer than 10 requests for a replacement ballot during the last two election cycles.

“They are pretty rare, because it’s only supposed to be when people lose their ballot, or never get it in the mail, or maybe make a mistake and want to request a new one,” Lusa said.

But the forms are much more common in Bridgeport, where candidates and operatives anticipated deploying them during this year's election.

Pereira and Duque requested 200 of the green forms weeks ahead of the primary, according to records reviewed by the CT Mirror. And many of them were used for a unique reason: to counter alleged ballot fraud.

Comments included on many of the forms claimed that people associated with the Ganim campaign illegally filled out the voters’ initial ballots or collected the ballots once they were completed.

“Joe Ganim's campaign workers were here. So felt pressured,” one of the green forms said. “Joe Ganim operative entered my home and directed me to vote row A,” read another. “Two female Ganim operatives assisted me with my ballot and were present when I completed it,” a third claimed.

Duque and Maria Agueda, another political operative who supported Gomes, also filed similar forms on behalf of voters in other districts. And just like the other examples, the forms claimed the replacement ballots were needed because Ganim supporters tampered with the initial votes.

“Wanda Geter said she would take my ballot to mailbox,” one of those forms read. “I was intimidated by black lady. She took my ballot. She was very aggressive,” another alleged. "Someone from Joe Ganim's team took / filled out my ballot. It was taken from me," a third said.

Melendez, Duque and Agueda did not return phone calls for this story, and attempts to contact voters whose names were on the green forms were unsuccessful.

Pereira, who properly registered as a distributor of absentee ballot applications and filed reports on who received her applications, said it was “perfectly legal” for her to assist voters in requesting a second ballot.

But one of the SEEC complaints that was filed following the primary included letters signed by two voters who claimed Pereira misled them into swapping their votes.

“I did not give anyone permission to change my vote. Voted line A,” Sylvia Mason, a resident of Augustana Homes, one of the city’s senior housing facilities, alleged in the complaint.

“I, Elinor Lewis, voted for Kevin and Samia. Councilwoman Maria tricked me by cancelling my vote for them. I never saw a green form. Nor did I sign one. If one was filled out, it was not by me,” another voter who lives at the Fireside Apartments added in a signed letter.

Monks, who helped the two women draft and submit those letters to the SEEC, said he was surprised that the initial ballots were disqualified, and he argued that Mason and Lewis were “hoodwinked” into requesting the replacement ballots.

Pereira told the CT Mirror that she was not concerned about the complaint or the pending SEEC investigation, and she said she already provided the SEEC with a “detailed response” to those allegations.

Pereira also emphasized that she helped people to obtain a second ballot only because of the alleged fraud initially committed by her political opponents.

“Every SEEC complaint Joe Ganim and Democratic Town Committee operatives have ever filed against me has been fully investigated and dismissed by SEEC,” Pereira said. “The SEEC can investigate the green form applications all they want because mine are 100% legitimate. I’m not going to let someone commit fraud in my district.”

Calls for change

The growing number of complaints over alleged fraud in Bridgeport is now pressuring the SEEC to move more quickly on its investigations into the alleged ballot tampering in the city.

It is also expected to prompt a heated debate in the upcoming 2024 legislative session about how to prevent those problems in future elections.

Gabe Rosenberg, the chief of staff and general counsel for Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas, said the secretary is likely to present a legislative package next year detailing several changes that could curb the influence of political operatives in absentee voting.

One proposal that is being considered, Rosenberg said, is shortening the window of time during which absentee applications are available ahead of elections.

Under the current law, Rosenberg pointed out, candidates, campaigns and political operatives can sign people up for absentee ballots months or even a year in advance of an election.

“I’m not sure there is a public policy reason for that, and I think that is something we are going to look at,” Rosenberg said.

Bridgeport will test a potential change to that law in January, when Ganim and Gomes are set to face off in the new court-ordered primary.

As part of his ruling, Judge Clark agreed to cap the amount of time that absentee applications are available to three weeks prior to the election.

But other people want to see even broader changes to the state’s absentee ballot laws.

Many Republicans continue to call for an end to absentee ballot drop boxes and increased criminal penalties for anyone violating the state’s election laws.

Meanwhile, the leaders of Bridgeport Generation Now Votes intend to ask state lawmakers to cut political operatives out of the absentee voting process altogether.

Davis and Heilmann said they are going to advocate for a bill that prohibits any candidate, campaign staffer or party official from handling or distributing applications for absentee ballots.

Their hope is that such a change would limit who can request an absentee ballot for another person to family members and other legal designees.

Heilmann argued that type of legislation, which is already law in states including Massachusetts, would be the best way to fix Bridgeport’s elections and to prevent voters from being further exposed to “manipulation, harassment, intimidation and fraud.”

None of those legislative proposals will be in place by the time Bridgeport voters return to the polls next month.

Keila Torres Ocasio and Jessika Harkay contributed reporting to this story.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated which organization Gemeem Davis and Callie Gale Heilmann represented during the primary. They mailed out absentee applications for Bridgeport Generation Now Votes, not Bridgeport Generation Now.