Gomes files list of witnesses for Monday absentee ballot court hearing.

Defiant Bridgeport mayoral candidate John Gomes’s legal team will have an opportunity to examine under oath the city employee their client has claimed is the woman depositing absentee ballots in a dropbox in the early morning hours a week before the September 12th primary. A preliminary witness and exhibit list submitted Friday by Gomes lawyers William Bloss and Christopher Mattei includes Wanda Geter-Pataky and Bridgeport’s Democratic Registrar of Voters, Patricia Howard.

Gomes and his supporters have said they believe Geter-Pataky is the city employee seen depositing ballots in an absentee ballot drop box by the entrance to the Margaret E. Morton Government Center. One video released by the Gomes campaign appears to show Geter-Pataky directing an unidentified man to deposit absentee ballots in the same box.

Gomes’s challenge is expected to threaten Incumbent Democrat Joseph Ganim’s narrow September 12th primary win by showing with the videos and other evidence a pattern of conduct that has made an accurate count of absentee ballots impossible.

The rising temperature in the Ganim campaign is evident in Matt Caron’s Fox61 report on the dispute. A Ganim aide called police when Caron and his crew appeared in the mayor’s office and asked for an interview. Previously, Ganim, a poor loser and a worse winner, called Gomes and company “losers.”

Ganim is seeking a third four-year term after his first run as mayor was interrupted by a federal prison term for corruption.

Published September 22, 2023.