Delegates put Bridgeport absentee ballot scandal on August primary ballot.

Delegates to the 124th District of the House of Representatives put the Bridgeport absentee ballot scandal on the August 13th primary ballot when they endorsed Eneida Martinez over incumbent Andre Baker for the seat. Martinez received nine votes to Baker’s three, Brian Lockhart reports.

Martinez asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a trial over absentee ballot fraud in last summer’s Democratic primary for mayor. Judge William Clark found enough evidence in the three day trial to conclude that Martinez and fellow Democrat Wanda Geter-Pataky had mishandled so many absentee ballots that it was impossible to determine who had won the primary between incumbent Joseph Ganim and challenger John Gomes.

Martinez, who serves on Bridgeport’s city council, also faces a trial for allegedly violating pandemic restrictions at a Bridgeport club she was managing in 2020.

Baker is seeking a sixth term. He’s likely to repeat often Martinez’s assessment of his work in the East End district. “He’s done a good job,” Lockhart reports Martinez as declaring more than once on Tuesday.

Bridgeport Democrats will be among the few in the state to have overlapping primaries for the House of Representatives and State Senate this summer.

[@MikeCerulliCT of WTNH attended the convention and posted the photo above pf Martinez on X.]

Published May 29, 2024.