Paul Bass File Photo
The City Clerk’s office rejected 15 absentee ballots already one day before polls opened for New Haven’s Democratic primaries.
The absentee ballots were from Newhallville’s Ward 20.
A police officer brought in a stack of absentee ballots from the ward on Monday afternoon. They were for the primary election taking place Tuesday. Mayor John DeStefano faces three Democratic challengers in that primary. And in Ward 20 City Hall-backed incumbent Alderman Charles Blango (pictured) faces a labor-backed challenger, Delphine Clyburn.
Deputy City Clerk Sally Brown noticed that the ballots were missing a signature: the signature of the person bringing them in, in this case the cop.
The cop said he didn’t want to sign them, Brown said. Because he hadn’t collected them from the voters.
Instead, he reported, he had collected them from the Blango campaign.
Under law, the campaign is not supposed to pick up absentee ballots from voters. A police officer, or a family member, is supposed to pick up the ballots directly from the voters, then bring them in to the City Clerk’s office, according to Brown.
Actually, most people mail theirs in. But on the day of the election, when it’s too late to mail in a ballot, cops pick up the last-minute ballots.
Brown said she phoned Blango to tell him she was rejecting those ballots and to tell him to discontinue the practice.
Blango Monday night called the episode an “honest mistake.”
“One of my staff persons said he had some ballots. I told him they can’t touch some ballots. Call the police. I don’t know the full story of that. I heard about that when Sally called,” Blango said.
“Listen. The guy is from North Carolina. He’s never been involved in politics. I will talk to him as such. One thing I told every staff person is they mail them out. That’s what they do. You tell the person, ‘You mail them. You cannot touch the ballot.’ I will definitely have that conversation.
“Hey, listen. We did the right thing. We called the police. It was an honest mistake. If it was dishonest he would have never called the police.”
Blango said his staffer called top Newhallville cop Lt. Thaddeus Reddish to deliver the ballots to the City Clerk’s office. Reddish could not be reached for comment Monday night.
Ward 20 has seen an explosion of absentee ballots this primary election. As of Monday the City Clerk’s office had sent out 138 requests absentee ballots to Ward 20 Democratic voters. That’s more than 10 percent of the entire total citywide this election; the office reported having sent out 1,315 to all 30 wards.
Under law voters are supposed to vote by absentee only if they are disabled, sick, out of town, or in the military, according to Brown.
Campaigns use absentee ballots as an “early voting” system of sorts that over the years has generated repeated allegations of fraud. Click here and here for previous stories about such allegations in Dixwell’s Ward 22.
The NHI could do us all a big favor and make sure that the local political machine doesn't resort to its old tricks.