Councilman Alfredo Castillo’s case is heading to trial. On August 25, Castillo rejected a plea deal that would have required him to serve two and a half years in prison, choosing instead to let a jury decide his fate on the 33 felony counts against him.

Castillo has not stayed quiet in the meantime. He has said, repeatedly and on the record, that he was simply “following the orders of the Democratic Party,” that Bridgeport’s absentee ballot operation benefited “the Bridgeport Mayor, members of Connecticut’s Congressional delegation, and the Governor,” and that “the foot soldiers get whacked” while the people at the top walk away untouched.

Whatever a jury eventually decides about the charges themselves, those are Castillo’s own words, spoken publicly and more than once — not an accusation from a campaign or a critic.

This isn’t the first time a Bridgeport City Council seat has been won this way. Less than a decade ago, Councilman Michael DeFilippo handled his own tenants’ absentee ballots, forged their signatures, and cast votes for himself — forcing his district through three separate primaries in under a year before the outcome could stand.

He pleaded guilty in 2024. A federal prosecutor told the sentencing judge that DeFilippo had “thwarted the will of the people to cheat his way into elected office.” His punishment amounted to three weekends in jail. Now we’re back in a Bridgeport courtroom, hearing about a similar method, applied by a different councilman, in a different part of the city.

Castillo’s own role in the 2023 primary is not a matter of speculation. All told, more than 10,800 people voted in that primary, and over 22% of those votes — 2,470 ballots — came in by absentee, in a race the incumbent mayor won by just 251 votes. One Bridgeport voter, a legal resident who is not a U.S. citizen,  told investigators that Castillo convinced her to register to vote and apply for an absentee ballot even after she informed him she was not a U.S. citizen.

“After I signed it, Alfredo took all of the forms in an envelope,” she said. “I never went to the post office to mail any documents.”

In a separate case last November, an elderly Harborview Towers resident told investigators Castillo visited her apartment, returned when her absentee ballot arrived, told her how to vote at her own kitchen table, and took the completed ballot to mail himself. Asked by investigators whether she had voted for who she wanted or who he told her to, she said simply, “He told me.”

Bill Bloss, my attorney who successfully argued to have a judge invalidate the results of the 2023 Bridgeport Democratic Mayoral Primary, has been blunt about what’s driving all of this. “Bridgeport has a very long, tortured history of absentee ballot abuse,” he has said. “It’s not a secret. It has been going on for years… It is just simply part of the electoral strategy, political culture in Bridgeport. The perception is that you can win elections in Bridgeport by harvesting absentee ballots. And so, they do it.”

That’s not a partisan talking point. It’s the assessment of the lawyer who has spent years in court proving it, case by case.

It’s worth noting that some of the people swept up in this scandal have already taken responsibility. Five other Bridgeport residents charged alongside Castillo have pleaded guilty and accepted sentences, several avoiding jail time through suspended sentences and probation. Those defendants, whatever their level of involvement, chose to acknowledge what happened rather than contest it in front of a jury. Castillo, by contrast, was offered a path to resolve his case with two and a half years before a possible release and turned it down, opting instead to fight the charges at trial.

Some Bridgeport residents have simply stopped believing in the integrity of the election process.

One voter, describing why she no longer bothers filling out her ballot the way campaigns want, put it plainly: whether people in this city vote or don’t vote, they’re still overlooked once the votes are counted — because campaigns only need their signature to get elected, and after that, nothing changes for the neighborhoods they came from.

That sense of resignation, more than any single case, is the real cost of what’s happened here.

This upcoming trial is one more reminder of how much it matters that every vote in Bridgeport is cast and counted honestly. I won’t comment further on the specifics of this case, but I will always stand on the side of transparent, lawful elections decided by voters — not by whoever controls the machine.

As we approach the November 2026 election, with absentee ballot voting beginning on October 2, it’s important to note what has changed in terms of ballot access, and what has not changed in terms of violations.

While many Connecticut lawmakers voted to expand access, safeguards that might prevent the next election scandal — mandatory minimum sentences for ballot fraud, signature verification on absentee ballots, and limits on who can collect and deliver absentee ballots — continue to be pushed to future legislative sessions.

Ballot access and ballot security go hand in hand. If election integrity is vital to a functioning government and the peaceful transfer of power, why are violations of this principle not given greater weight? Prosecution won’t fix Bridgeport’s voter turnout — but it’s a start and can begin to restore trust in the integrity of elections.

John Gomes is a former Bridgeport mayoral candidate who ran in the city’s 2023 Democratic primary and general election