The State Election Enforcement Commission has opened an investigation in New Haven.
Former mayoral candidate Shafiq Abdussabur had complained when more than a thousand of his signatures to get on the Democratic primary ballot were thrown out.
Abdussabur said his campaign was not told why almost half of his signatures were thrown out — and then, he dropped out of the race.
Abdussabur said he now looks at that disqualification as a blessing.
“The process to be mayor has to be made credible and tangible,” Abdussabur said. “And in this case, it was absolutely destabilized by the register's office. Now, what it feels like the universe is telling me is, you're a good advocate, you’re a community builder, you've done this type of work before, reformed legislation and policing for two decades. Now, this is where you need to be.”
Nearly half of the 2,700 signatures Abdussabur collected to make the Sept. 12 ballot were disqualified by the Registrar of Voters for being illegible or belonging to non-registered voters. According to the campaign, the registrar did not specify what was wrong with each signature.
Abdussabur said he feels like he has the opportunity to make the city’s election system more fair— and he hopes to start with the SEEC investigation.
“There's some serious problems at the registrar's office, and I'm so grateful that the state Election Enforcement Committee has accepted to investigate these claims as bonafide claims, and that they can just really go into that office and peel back and ask the really obvious questions,” Abdussabur said.
Abdussabur said those questions pertain to how much training employees get, who is counting signatures and ballots, and what that process looks like.
He said he hopes to ensure that in the future, everyone who is eligible and wants to vote is able to on Election Day. Abdussabur said low voter turnout was partly due to people being turned away at election centers because they registration was inactive.
“This is not an issue about me and my campaign, Abdussabur said. “This is an issue about democracy.”
The commission has one year to investigate.
The same commission is investigating alleged ballot fraud in Bridgeport, but Abdussabur said his investigation was approved before the alleged video of a woman stuffing the ballot box in Bridgeport came out.
