After the Democratic mayoral primary in Bridgeport, Connecticut was found to be rife with voter fraud, they were forced to schedule a do-over election. Mayor Joe Ganim faced off again for the third time yesterday against his former aide, John Gomes. The results last night appeared to be not much different from the previous two attempts, except there haven’t been any reports of widespread election fraud… at least not yet. The race was close, but Ganim declared victory about an hour after the polls closed. Gomes again refused to concede but said in a statement to his campaign team that the numbers didn’t look as good as they had hoped. But he insisted there were still more votes to be counted. Bridgeport is being closely watched in this, having become the national poster child for election fraud. Making matters worse, they will still have to do it all over again next month. (Associated Press)

Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim has won a do-over Democratic primary, months after a judge threw out the result of the last one because of allegations of absentee ballot stuffing in Connecticut’s largest city.

Ganim defeated John Gomes, his former acting chief administrative officer who narrowly lost the now-voided Sept. 12 primary and later successfully challenged the result in court, in Tuesday’s vote.

It was the third time the two candidates have faced off in the past five months during this unusual and protracted mayoral election, and things might not be over yet.

To be clear, this was a do-over of the Democratic primary, so the city still doesn’t technically have a mayor. On February 27, they are tentatively scheduled to run the general election for a second time as well. The two Democrats and a long-shot Republican will likely compete, along with a fourth independent candidate. Perhaps they can finally finish this ugly saga if they can manage to avoid being caught cheating again.

The AP charitably refers to the original primary election as having been “marred by ballot irregularities.” That’s putting it mildly. Even after the original court case tossed the results, an ongoing audit found even more problems. It wasn’t just “a couple of ballots” here or there. It appears that at least two of Ganim’s campaign workers had stuffed hundreds of ballots into drop boxes. They have both been charged with campaign fraud and pleaded the Fifth when questioned.

Those are only the two women who managed to get caught on camera, however. Were there other people doing that in less obvious ways? If so, how many of them were there? You might be thinking that there’s no way they would go back to the well and try it again after being caught and creating a national scandal. Don’t be silly. Of course they would.

Keep in mind that Joe Ganim doesn’t exactly have a pristine record of good governance. He was the city’s mayor from 1991 to 2003 when he was convicted of racketeering, extortion, and accepting bribes and kickbacks. He spent seven years behind bars, but the overwhelming majority of Bridgeport Democrats voted him back into his old office once he was released. I’d like to think that redemption is possible for anyone, but this guy’s track record seems to speak for itself.

More than anything else, Bridgeport should have served as a warning sign for the rest of the nation. The adoption of mass mail-in voting during the pandemic, later made permanent by Democratic legislators around the country has been a disaster. If people are so concerned about “the future of our democracy,” they would return to in-person, same-day voting in nearly all cases. Make election day a national holiday if you’re worried about people not being able to make it to the polls. (Despite the polls being open for more than 12 hours almost everywhere.) Exceptions can be made for those who are legitimately going to be out of town, the disabled, senior citizens, and those who are unable to travel. Everyone else should simply make the time to show up and vote and both parties should have election monitors watching like hawks at every polling station. As long as cheating is possible, people will try to take advantage of that. It’s been proven over and over again. It should be made as difficult to cheat as possible and the penalties for those who are caught should be increased significantly.