Judge Stevens Orders New State House Primary Between Hennessy and Brown

Citing four voters who did not sign their applications for absentee ballots, Superior Court Judge Barry Stevens on Tuesday ordered a new Democratic primary between incumbent State Rep. Jack Hennessy and City Councilman Marcus Brown in Connecticut’s 127th Assembly District

Election officials huddled Tuesday afternoon to establish a timeline for a new primary approved by the judge with input from the campaign camps. Theoretically it could be a quick shotgun primary or one with extended time.

The Brown campaign is pondering an appeal of Stevens ruling to the Connecticut Supreme Court.

Read the judge’s decision here.

To say the ebbs and flows of this court navigation have produced judicial whiplash is a gross understatement. On August primary night Brown held a five-vote lead when the votes were tabulated triggering an automatic recount. The recanvassing gave Hennessy a one-vote edge but with nine absentee ballots not counted because they were stashed away in a bag of another district.

Brown ran into court. The parties stipulated to a hand recount approved by Stevens. The manual count of all the ballots including those not counted in the initial recanvassing tilted the lead to Brown by two votes. Hennessy initiated a counterclaim asserting irregularities with the processing of absentee ballot applications.

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10 comments

  1. Judge Stevens Missing Ballots, Chain of Custody Broken!!!
    Chain of Custody Definition
    In practice, a chain of custody is a chronological paper trail documenting when, how, and by whom individual items of physical or electronic evidence—such as cell phone logs—were collected, handled, analyzed, or otherwise controlled during an investigation. Under the law, an item will not be accepted as evidence during the trial—will not be seen by the jury—unless the chain of custody is an unbroken and fully documented trail without gaps or discrepancies. In order to convict a defendant of a crime, the evidence against them must have been handled in a meticulously careful manner to prevent tampering or contamination.

    In court, the chain of custody documentation is presented by the prosecution in order to prove that the item of evidence is, in fact, related to the alleged crime, and that it had been in the possession of the defendant. In an effort to establish a reasonable doubt of guilt, the defense looks for holes or acts of mishandling in the chain of custody to show, for example, that the item ( ballots may have been fraudulently “planted”) to make the accused person appear guilty.

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    1. Well, comrade, while I won’t read it if that’s the case though and Hennessy’s/Maria’s convoy loses. It seems this drama might be sent up to Connecticut SC, considering Maria has (I believe) constructed a 100-page indictment with 40 exhibits on her own that she sent to the FBI and SEEC.

      This might not be the end of this Soap Opera. JS

      In the spirit of JML, Time Will Tell.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYr0coGB1r8

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  2. Bridgeport has finally received some respect from the State of Connecticut via Judge Stevens’ thoughtful decision. He was very clear, in this regard, that Bridgeport, and its mismanagement at the state and local levels must be taken seriously by the local players and state-level overseers responsible for Bridgeport’s well-being. This Primary re-do comes during a critical, tricky state-national election season and could trigger voter attention in Bridgeport that could go towards tipping the scales against the status quo with respect to the statewide and federal candidates on the Bridgeport November ballot… Maybe no really big surprises in the Governor’s or Senator’s races — but who knows at the Congressional and the other, statewide contests…

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