BRIDGEPORT - Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim calls a lawsuit filed against him and other supporters has nothing but sour grapes.
Ganim defeated Marilyn Moore by fewer than 300 votes two weeks ago in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary and that was only because Ganim won on absentee ballots by over 600 votes.
And, and a local group is claiming he earned the win fraudulently. So, they filed a lawsuit.
Bottom line: The supposed non-partisan organization, known as Bridgeport Generation Now Votes, wants a New Democratic primary held.
The lawsuit alleges that some of Joe Ganim‘s campaign supporters went as far as pressuring voters to vote for the incumbent.
“Non-designees are completing entire applications for the voter and just telling them the voter to sign it,” claims Callie Gale Heilmann, Co-Director of Bridgeport Generation Now Votes.
That’s just one of the claims the suit makes against numerous defendants, including encumbered Mayor Ganim.
“This isn’t unusual,” Ganim said. “Sometimes people aren’t happy and they want to, especially if it’s a campaign manager of the opposite party, the losing party so that’s what’s happening here.”
Bridgeport City Clerk Lydia Martinez, who was unavailable for comment today, is among the people named in the lawsuit, which alleges she targeted one of the city’s affordable housing complexes, where she allegedly went looking for absentee voters.
“No one is allowed to assist or handle the absentee ballots unless they are a family member, caregiver or designate,” said Heilmann.
The Resident Service Coordinator for Bridgeport seniors says this illegal contact was a serious problem during the primary.
“People coming in, wanting to knock on doors, not letting me know that they were there and going through the building.”
Ganim says it’s ironic that this supposedly non-partisan group, whose former Co-Director, Gemeen Davis, was Moore‘s Campaign Manager, would make claims of voter fraud given what happened to a woman on Moore‘s team
“There is a woman, who who pled guilty to absentee ballot fraud in Stratford, that’s the head of her operation,” said Ganim.
That woman Ganim referred to is Betty Chappell, who Marilyn Moore says was not involved in circulating absentee ballot applications to voters on behalf of her campaign.
Of course, state elections officials are investigating.