I assume that someone will be getting arrested in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and sent to trial, assuming there is any consistency left in the enforcement of our laws. And the person in question should be John Gomes. He’s a former Bridgeport city employee who was fired by Mayor Joe Ganim last year. Apparently unhappy with that outcome, he decided to take a run at his former boss to unseat him in the Democratic primary that took place this week. But when the final vote tallies were announced, Gomes came up a couple hundred votes short and Ganim declared victory. That didn’t satisfy John Gomes, though. He refused to concede and declared to the press that he had actually won and the election was stolen. Last time I checked, that can land you in federal prison for a decade, right? (Insert sound of crickets from the Democrats here.) This was reported in the CT Mirror.
Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim claimed victory over his Democratic challenger John Gomes in an election that came down to several thousand absentee ballots that were counted late Tuesday night.
But Gomes refused to concede, arguing that the election was “stolen” by Ganim, who was endorsed by the city’s Democratic party.
“There will be tangible evidence that this election was sabotaged and was stolen again,” Gomes told his supporters. “The people voted for us. The people want proper representation. But they continue to manipulate the system and oppress the majority.”
Let’s take a look at how this election played out and tell me if you notice any similarities to other contested races in the past. Both candidates were competitive, and on election day the exit polls suggested that Gomes had pulled it off and taken the lead. And he did in fact win a majority of the in-person ballots cast at the polls. But Gonim had already gone out and assured his supporters that they would make up the difference when all of the absentee mail-in ballots were counted. And that’s what reportedly happened.
Gomes is more than a little suspicious about the storage and counting of the mail-in ballots. But I seem to recall being assured that it’s only the Republicans who cause trouble by questioning huge numbers of votes by mail, ballot-harvesting, and all the rest. Yet here we have two Democrats battling head to head and the same disputed outcome is the result.
Join me for a brief walk down memory lane to the 2020 election in New York’s 22nd congressional district. That race wasn’t officially called until February, more than a month after the New Congress had been seated. In the end, Republican Claudia Tenney retook her old seat from Democratic incumbent Anthony Brindisi. Maybe. We’ll never actually know who won that race by the same slender margin Joe Ganim claims to have over John Gomes. That’s because thousands of mail-in votes were unable to be verified as to whether they had been counted once, twice, or never. 54 people showed up to vote on election day after sending in mail-in ballots. (And those were just the ones elections monitors were able to catch.) And at least three people (that we know of) cast ballots in the names of dead relatives.
Why wouldn’t Gomes complain? Why shouldn’t he be able to ask for a recount and an investigation into how the mail-in ballots were handled? In a more sane and balanced world, he should be able to and perhaps he still will. But if you try that and your last name is Trump, they will find someone to charge you with crimes and try to throw you in prison. Or at least they will if you try to run for office again. Perhaps if Mr. Gomes simply goes home and keeps his mouth shut he’ll be okay.
Read the full article here