Andrew Brown of the Connecticut Mirror posed a poignant question in his June 26 piece reporting that Bridgeport elections scandals fail to inspire new laws.
How is it that with “seven political operatives, campaign workers and elected officials currently facing charges for allegedly manipulating Bridgeport’s absentee voting system” no pieces of legislation to end a long string of election-related crime in Bridgeport made it into law in Connecticut in 2025?
The answer is because Connecticut is dirty. You don’t even have to show a government issued photo ID like a Connecticut driver’s license or non-driver photo identification card to vote, even though the vast majority of Americans support just such a requirement, across all races and ethnicities.
But that would make it harder for the Democratic Party of Connecticut to have people cheat on its behalf. Of the seven political operatives presently facing charges, five are associated with the Bridgeport Democratic Party. More than 150 charges have been filed according to Brown’s article on the “most significant criminal prosecution of election-related crime in Connecticut history.” It should be noted that all criminal defendants are innocent until proven guilty or they admit to a criminal charge.
According to the Chief State’s Attorney’s office, the charges include absentee voting irregularities, forged signatures, registering non-citizens to vote, illegally telling people how to vote, changing votes after they were cast and harvesting ballots to deliver to ballot drop boxes. The poster child for this whole nest of corruption is alleged to be Wanda Geter-Pataky, vice-chair of the Bridgeport Democratic Party.
But do not lose sight of why this corruption exists in Bridgeport. It benefits the Connecticut Democratic Party statewide!
The more votes the Bridgeport Democratic Party can manufacture and send to Hartford, the better the election outcome for Democrats in statewide contests and in the 4th U.S. Congressional district. The Democrats control the five constitutional offices of governor (Ned Lamont), lieutenant governor (Susan Bysiewicz), attorney general (William Tong), secretary of state (Stephanie Thomas) and treasurer (Erick Russell). They also hold the two U.S. senate seats in Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal as well as the 4th U.S. Congressional District (Jim Himes).
Our Democratic Party of Connecticut has been benefiting from a corrupt Bridgeport for decades and it has no intention of stopping the voting scandals, which is why election reform is unlikely.
Our Democrat Party has made a deal with the devil. In Goethe’s Faust, Dr. Faust is offered help by Mephistopheles, the Devil, to know, in a Biblical sense, the young maiden Gretchen. In exchange, Faust bets Mephistopheles that Mephistopheles can never make Faust so content that he will wish that moment to last forever.
The deal that our Democrat Party has made is that the Democratic Party of Bridgeport can abuse the election rights and expectations of Bridgeport residents to maintain the dominance of the Bridgeport Democratic Party over Bridgeport in exchange for the Bridgeport Democrats producing as many Democrat votes as they can as Connecticut’s largest city to elect Democrats statewide, the two U.S. senators and in the 4th U.S. Congressional District.
One result of this deal with the devil is one of the slowest state economies of all 50 states! Connecticut was one of the last states to regain the jobs lost in the 2008-2009 Great Recession in 2024. We are saddled with a corrupt political class.
Housing has been made so expensive to permit and build that it has been put out of reach for young buyers and young families. Connecticut has a high cost of living as well as anemic economic growth. The residents who leave this progressive paradise have a higher education level and more assets than residents who replace them with lower education and assets which is a loss to the entire state.
And who is the personification of this corruption of Bridgeport? In my opinion it is Mayor Joseph Ganim. After serving as mayor from 1991-2003 he was convicted of 16 federal counts in racketeering, extortion, conspiracy, bribery, mail fraud and filing a false tax return. According to Wikipedia, Ganim shook down Bridgeport city contractors for more than half a million dollars in cash, food, wine, clothing, home renovations and diamonds. He was sentenced to nine years in prison and about $475,000 in fines and restitution. He was released in 2010 after seven years in prison.
Part of prison is the concept of redemption and paying for your crime. Based on that Ganim again ran for mayor in 2015 and won. All slates were clear at that point.
I met Ganim twice in the campaign of 2017-18 when I ran for governor. The first time was after I had met with a civil rights advocate in the African American community in 2017 and then in April 2018 when the NAACP of Connecticut sponsored a gubernatorial debate in New Haven on prisoner re-entry into society. Present were candidates Lamont, Bysiewicz, Guy Smith, Ganim and me. My impression of Ganim was of an energetic and positive politician with a gregarious nature that would make you comfortable in his presence.
In 2019, when State Sen. Marilyn Moore opposed Mayor Ganim in the Bridgeport Democratic primary for mayor, Moore beat Ganim in the city’s voting booths, but she lost because of the city’s absentee ballots. How convenient for Mayor Ganim.
So here we are in 2025. Bridgeport Democrat Party operatives and members are charged with election fraud, complete with videos that appear to show ballot box stuffing. Again, all individuals are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
But the Connecticut legislature, controlled by Democrats, and the governor, a Democrat, have done nothing to clean this rot.
And so Connecticut will continue to be at the bottom of economic performance of the 50 states in growth as the pain of progressive policies continue to drown the state.
Andrew Brown: To answer your cogent question: no legislation tightening up against the election fraud alleged in Bridgeport happened in Hartford this year because Connecticut is a dirty state.
Never say never, however, as even Dr. Faust changed course and with the intercession of Gretchen, whom he had betrayed, his soul was redeemed.
Peter Thalheim of Stamford is the author of “Connecticut: Formerly the Constitution State: How the politicians and judges have subjected the citizen to the state.”