BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — For the first time Thursday, a judge started hearing evidence in the lawsuit that seeks to overturn the results of the Bridgeport Mayoral Primary. The campaign of John Gomes claims the election was stolen, while the Ganim campaign continues to call him a sore loser.
On Thursday, Bill Bloss, the Attorney for John Gomes, began laying the groundwork in the hopes of ultimately convincing a judge that the numbers just don’t add up.
“This is a problem nowhere in the state of Connecticut other than Bridgeport,” said Bloss.
“It is an issue because to some degree people are hypersensitive,” rebutted John Kennelly, the attorney representing the interests of the city of Bridgeport.
Both sides then took their arguments before Judge William Clark. They presented evidence and called witnesses. One of those to take the stand was Christina Resto, the Assistant Town Clerk for the city of Bridgeport.
“We don’t sit there and go through 5,000 applications and we are not detectives,” said Resto during her testimony.
She was questioned about what the clerk’s office does and doesn’t do with absentee ballots.
“If the voter checked off a reason (for voting absentee), you don’t do anything to investigate that?” asked Bloss.
“Oh no,” said Resto.
“Not at all.” Bloss continued, “If the voter puts a signature on an application do you do anything to try and confirm if that’s the voter's signature?”
“No. If a signature is on it then we process it," Resto responded.
According to testimony, not only is there no signature verification, but the city also doesn’t check if people are U.S. citizens or have a way of differentiating between the number of absentee ballots sent back to the through the mail versus put into one of the city's four drop boxes.
“The number of people and absentee ballots that came in without stamps and postmarks substantially exceeds the number we see on the videos dropping absentee ballots into the drop box,” said Bloss.
“You can suggest a lot of things but the law is the law and Bill can’t just make open needed allegations and think those take the place of evidence,” rebutted Attorney Kennelly.
No video evidence was presented on Thursday, but the Gomes team claims it’s coming and allegedly will show Wanda Geter in more videos than just the very public one released by the campaign.
“Ballot harvesting. That suggests ballot harvesting. That means there are people putting in ballots that don’t belong to them. Which is illegal,” said Bloss.
“Smoke does not equal fire unless you can prove it,” replied Kennelly.
We also learned Thursday that the Gomes campaign plans to call Mayor Joe Ganim to the stand to testify. Attorney Kennelly called it courtroom theatrics meant to do nothing more than grab headlines.
Ganim was originally elected in 1991. He served until 2003 when he resigned following his conviction on federal corruption charges. He received a nine year sentence and was released in 2010 following a reduction of his sentence due to successful participation in prison programs. He worked for his families law firm, since he was no longer allowed to practice law. He ran again for mayor successfully in 2015 and was reelected in 2019.
Matt Caron is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at mcaron@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Jennifer Glatz is a digital content producer at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jglatz@fox61.com.
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