Elections Enforcement Sends Bridgeport Absentee Ballot Complaint To Chief State’s Attorney

by Viktoria Sundqvist

A potential criminal violation in a 2024 complaint related to absentee ballots in Bridgeport warrants handing the case over to the Chief State’s Attorney’s office for further investigation, the State Election Enforcement Commission has ruled.

The complaint, filed by Ana Plaza in May 2024, alleges that a woman claiming to work for Mayor Joe Ganim’s re-election campaign went to two separate homes in Bridgeport in February of that year to collect absentee ballots that she said she would then mail out on people’s behalf. 

At the first home, Plaza’s, the woman left empty handed. At the second home, a resident gave the woman her ballot, and security footage showing the woman leaving with the ballot was submitted as evidence to the SEEC. 

Under Connecticut law, only the voter or a designee – like a person caring for someone due to illness or disability – is allowed to handle a person’s ballot.

The SEEC voted 5-0 at its July 16 meeting to forward the case for a criminal investigation and administratively close the case on its end. But the commission has the to reopen it once the criminal investigation concludes. 

This is not the first time there’s been an issue with absentee ballots in Bridgeport.

The Chief State’s Attorney last year charged four campaign workers involved in the 2019 Bridgeport Democratic mayoral primary with the misuse of absentee ballots and a Superior Court judge in November 2023 ruled that the results of a Democratic primary in Bridgeport earlier that year would be thrown out due to “ballot harvesting.” A redo of the primary was ordered for January 2024.

The Secretary of the State’s office referred complaints to the SEEC in March 2024 regarding allegations that voters received absentee ballots they did not request, that election workers were collecting absentee ballots, that workers were offering cash in return for completed absentee ballots and suspicious activities at absentee voter drop boxes. 

Bridgeport now has election monitors from the state on site for each regular and special election as well as any primary through 2026. The state recently approved $300,000 in its budget to help pay for them.

A new state law now also requires all absentee ballot boxes to be under video surveillance. The devices must start recording on the first day absentee ballots for an election or primary are issued and continue recording until the town clerk receives the last ballots.