Hearings for a lawsuit that seeks to overturn the results of Bridgeport’s Democratic mayoral primary are expected to wrap up Tuesday.
Incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim beat State Senator Marilyn Moore by 270 votes. Moore won at the polls, but votes for Ganim on absentee ballots outnumbered Moore’s 3-to-1.
Among the lawsuit claims are that people who were not eligible to vote absentee – for reasons like illness or travel – did so illegally.
Bridgeport Superior Court Judge Barry Stevens is considering whether enough votes were mistakenly counted in the primary to tip the outcome.
“A ballot that is counted that, for whatever reason, legally should not have been counted, represents a mistake in the count of the vote.”
Before the end of the month, Stevens plans to decide whether to order a new primary. That’s just before the November 5 election, where Moore challenges Ganim as a write-in candidate for mayor.
