by Laura Glesby
A third voter has come forward to say that he was bribed with a warm meal while homeless to cast his ballot for Ward 3 alder candidate Miguel Pittman.
The voter also stated the campaign filled out a form that listed him as living at an address where he had never stayed.
The account marks the latest allegation that campaign supporters bribed unhoused voters to cast their ballots for Pittman in the Ward 3 alder race against incumbent alder Angel Hubbard.
Hubbard, the Democratic nominee, wound up beating Pittman, a registered Democrat who ran on the Republican and Independent Party lines, by a final vote of 347-302 in the Nov. 4 general election.
The day before the election, each campaign filed a complaint about the other with the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC). Pittman claimed that Hubbard supporter and former Ward 3 alder Ron Hurt registered to vote at an address at which he didn’t reside, while Hubbard submitted statements from two other unhoused voters who said they were bribed to vote for Pittman, along with allegations that the Pittman campaign illegally collected absentee ballots.
Aniyah Thompson recalled that in late October, he had heard that Pittman’s wife, Sandra, was offering unhoused people plates of food from the couple’s Congress Avenue restaurant, Sandra’s Next Generation, in exchange for a vote for her husband.
Thompson was hungry. At 37 years old, he’d been homeless for about three years. It was late October, and his food stamps wouldn’t be funded the next week. So, Thompson said, he decided to call Sandra and take her up on the offer.
Thompson, whom the Independent reached without assistance from either campaign and who said he’s never met Hubbard or her campaign supporters, described what happened from his perspective in an interview conducted via text and voice message.
“I was given Sandra’s number,” Thompson said. “I called her and she said what she was doing. She said that if you vote, come get a plate of food. Vote for her husband. Her husband is Miguel.”
He wrote that Sandra picked him up in a white van, with two other campaign supporters inside, including one who spoke Spanish. The details echoed a signed statement from Hubbard campaign supporter Ian Skoggard submitted to the SEEC as part of Hubbard’s complaint against Pittman; the statement included an allegation that “a Spanish-speaking lady driving a white van” illegally collected absentee ballots from Ward 3 voters. Those details weren’t published in an Independent article about the complaint.
Thompson said that one of the supporters filled out a form on his behalf, listing the address 168 Davenport (a family shelter run by Christian Community Action) as his residence, even though he’s never lived there.
Thompson cast an early vote on Oct. 29 at the early voting station at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). He registered to vote that same day, via the early voting Same Day Registration process, at the address 168 Davenport.
He was one of eight people who registered with that address at the SCSU early voting site, despite the fact that shelter leadership confirmed they did not live at that address and did not have permission to use that address.
He said that after he voted, the Pittman supporters who drove him to the polls high-fived him, congratulated him on exercising his right to vote, and brought him to Sandra’s restaurant to receive a free plate of food.
“I barely vote because I don’t really believe in elections like that. And she made me feel like I was doing something good for the community,” Thompson said.
He said they drove him along with another couple to the restaurant and asked him what he wanted to eat. He selected fried chicken wings, mac and cheese, collard greens, and corn bread.
He wrote that he “only took it because im homeless still and wanted something to eat and we weren’t getting food stamps and I was hungry.”
In response to these allegations, Pittman said over the phone, “That’s not true. We don’t have to feed somebody to vote for us. We feed people anyway. … We do that all the time. Why would we offer somebody some food to eat and we already give food to eat? That doesn’t make sense.”
Hubbard, meanwhile, said “I don’t even know who this person is.”
“To use the unhoused for a vote is just distasteful,” she said. “I’m disgusted by this whole thing.”
“How were these people able to vote without any proof of residency?” she added. “These allegations should be looked into. They should be taken serious.”
At the same time, she said, “The election is over. I want to get it behind me. I’m really looking forward to focusing on the needs of the community of Ward 3.”
While Thompson did register to vote at an address that wasn’t his, he likely would have been considered to be eligible to vote in Ward 3.
Voters without a permanent residence are entitled to vote, according to the Secretary of State’s website. They are eligible to vote for elections affecting their physical address, not their voting address, according to the website, which states that “your mailing address could be a local shelter or post office, while your physical address could be a particular place such as a park bench.”
Thompson said that he was staying at the time at a friend’s home, located within Ward 3, making him eligible to vote in the race between Hubbard and Pittman. He said that he uses a nearby mailing address associated with a Columbus House homeless shelter located in nearby Ward 4.
Despite his real connection to an address within the ward, “They [Pittman supporters] filled out the form for me and stated if they ask just say I live at this location,” Thompson wrote, “which wasn’t true.”
“I only did it because I wanted a plate of food,” Thompson wrote.
He said that he later saw an article circulated on Facebook about two voters who similarly came forward to say they were bribed for their votes. He said he “felt like I did something wrong.”
“It made me feel like she exploited me. I’m already homeless, I’m already struggling as it is,” Thompson said.
He added later in a text message: “Homeless is real and we are desp[e]rate but should not be exploited for political gain.”
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