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OEsheepdog
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Change is good...that's what I keep telling my colleagues. It's difficult and hard. It's challenging and rewarding. It's fraught with peril. It needs to be done...yesterday!

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Salon.com
Editor’s Pick
NOVEMBER 5, 2010 9:52AM

What's up with the Governor's Race in Connecticut?

Rate: 11 Flag

You may or not know, that this race still remains too close to call, even though both candidates, Democrat Dan Malloy and Republican Tom Foley claim to be the state's 88th governor.

It seems that there were problems with not enough ballots to go around in the state's largest city, Bridgeport. With about 72,000 registered voters, there were only 21,000 ballots.

This forced election officials to scramble and a judge allowed the polls to remain open an extra 2 hours to allow voters who were turned away earlier in the day because their precincts lacked balllots for voters to cast their votes.

Not surprisingly, Republican multimillionaire Tom Foley cried foul and lawyered up rather quickly claiming voter fraud. Bridgeport has a large minority population and tends to swing Democrat.

As for former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy, the Democrat, he announced a transition team, rather prematurely in my view. And The Secretary of the State, a Democrat, also announced "unofficial" returns that favored Malloy.

As Yogi Berra once opined, "it isn't over 'til it's over," it would have made much sense for each candidate to remain quiet ( a herculean task) and let this flawed process run its course and see what the outcome was.

Connecticut law mandates an automatic recount if the margin of victory is less than 2,000 votes. this morning's on line version of The New York Times  reports that Bridgeport has finally concluded its ballot tally and according to Mayor Bill Finch, Malloy received 17,800 votes to  Foley's 4,075 votes which unofficially give Malloy over a 5,000 vote margin.

Needless to say that we haven't heard the last of this story, and most interesting tidbit that I get from this election contest, is that there is not a clear mandate for either candidate. Our electorate is really split, here.

Now that we're almost ten years out from the Florida election debacle, we seem to be no closer in being able to have elections that don't give voters and candidates the appearance of  fraud or tampering.

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How frustrating is that?! We can land on Mars but we cannot print enough ballots for an American city? [wrapping duct tape around my head.] One would almost think this is on purpose...
This must seem like a prayer answered for several legal firms.
Deb -- I almost started to jump to conclusions on Tuesday when I heard there weren't enough ballots in Bridgeport, but I decided not to overreact. Bridgeport is a crazy place, it will be months, if ever, before we learn what went wrong.

Eve -- The glass is ALWAYS half full for you, isn't it?
OES, thanks - this story seems to be receiving very little media focus.
We ran out of ballots too strangely enough. but not because we didn't have them. it was because the assistant monitor left the premises for lunch with the keys to the locker.

I can't begin to describe to you the attitudes that ensued and rightly so. No one wants to stand around cooling their heels when they are there to vote. everyone wants to get in and get out quickly.

We were very very shorthanded. For some reason the state decided this wasn't going to be a big election. With all the ads and polling showing very strong emotions, we should have had at least a 50% increase in personnel to handle the turnout. And lots of ballots.

CT was not in top form on Tuesday. But the voters were. We had a steady stream of voters all day, and a 50 - 60% turnout in our district. I think we were typical.
let me tell you something, those ballots were miserable to handle. VERY slick, which meant they were hard to seperate to hand out and they were thick, so it was difficult to discern whether you were giving one or two.

There may have been sufficient ballots BUT there was a situation where two parties were endorsing the same candidates. (dems and working family parties)
so 10% of the ballots in our district were spoiled. that's a LOT of ballots in a large city. and it will hold up the voting. our very last voter needed THREE ballots to get it right before the machine would accept it.

I would say, our election day was not easy for anyone.
FM -- I thought the ballot design sucked. Very difficult to comprehend. Malloy was listed on the ballot twice. Why wasn't he listed once with both parties next to his name. I've seen that in other states. I thought that woud lead to big problems for him.

Bridgeport strikes me as a very weird place. Since I live virtually next door to it.
Was a Republican in charge of delivering ballots to Bridgeport (haha)? One of the lessons learned from the Flordia debacle was to make sure your candidate claims victory and positions him/herself as the wronged party if anything goes astray. Repubs never tire of claiming "voter fraud."
Stim -- there is a republican and democrat who oversee the election process in Bridgeport. President Obama came to Bridgeport last week and held a rally which might have boosted turnout there.
OEsheepdog, thanks for the update on the CT vote count. The story of the bag of ballots in Bridgeport that no one wanted to count Tuesday night sounded like comedy material to me. Let's picture the Three Stooges being present there that night along with a few custard pies being thrown for good measure!
John -- The interesting thing about the bag with the uncounted balots is that every local election official Republican and Democrat knew of its existence. It didn't appear mysteriously. It just went uncounted.
Why can't we get Jimmy Carter to monitor our elections? We're already a third world nation.
This would be unbelieveable....except it isn't
My biggest surprise on reading this--I didn't know Bridgeport was CT's largest city.
I heard about this Election Day and wondered, who was responsible for getting the ballots there? knowing that Bridgeport turns out predominantly Democratic. Looks like there's no answer available, though.
Bill -- Carter is incompetent, remember?

Nikki -- Truth is stranger than fiction.

Con -- When I moved here last year, I was surprised to learn this, too.

Connie Mack -- It will all come once the dirty laundry is aired.
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You are such a nice writer. But I think the only votes that really count anymore are those that we click on when we rate.
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