Cortney Weil October 21, 2024 theblaze.com
'He told me that I would not have a problem if I voted as a permanent resident.'
Two Democrat officials in Bridgeport, Connecticut, have been accused of helping a permanent resident cast a vote even after the woman reportedly mentioned she was not a U.S. citizen.
Alfredo Castillo, a Democrat city councilman, and Wanda Geter-Pataky — the vice chairwoman of the Bridgeport Democratic Party and a close associate of Mayor Joe Ganim (D), who spent seven years behind bars for political corruption — allegedly engaged in election fraud in both 2019 and 2023.
Both Castillo and Geter-Pataky — as well as two other defendants — have already been charged in connection with allegedly mishandling absentee ballots in 2019, as Blaze News previously reported.
'American elections are for American citizens — who cast their votes free of corruption or coercion.'
Now, according to the CT Mirror, both have been accused of helping Arianna Hernandez, a Bridgeport permanent resident who communicates mainly in Spanish even though she has lived in the U.S. legally for 20 years, cast an absentee ballot in the Bridgeport mayoral primary in September 2023.
Earlier this month, Hernandez averred in an affidavit that Castillo and an unidentified woman stopped by her home in 2023 and persuaded her to sign a voter registration application.
"I did not fill out the form," Hernandez wrote in the complaint, according to an official English translation. "I do not know when it was filled."
Hernandez further insisted that she "did not indicate on the form" that she was a U.S. citizen. In fact, she told the CT Mirror that she specifically mentioned to Castillo that she is not a citizen.
"He told me that I would not have a problem if I voted as a permanent resident," she said in Spanish on the affidavit.
According to Hernandez, Castillo later arrived at her home again, this time with an absentee ballot application and ballot that she signed but did not fill out.
"Alfredo returned ... with another form which indicated that I could not vote in person because I was sick. That is not true," Hernandez wrote. "I never filled out the absentee ballot, but I signed it because Alfredo told me he would fill it out."
"After I signed the absentee ballot application, Mr. Alfredo Castillo gave me the absentee ballot to sign," she continued. "After I signed it, Alfredo took all of the forms in an envelope."
"He told me that I would not have any problems being a permanent resident and convinced me to sign everything."
The serial number on Hernandez's absentee ballot application indicates that it was among the forms Castillo collected in January 2023, the CT Mirror reported.
The affidavit said that Geter-Pataky signed at least one of Hernandez's ballot forms, claiming to have assisted her in filling it out.
Records show that Hernandez registered to vote in February 2023 and withdrew the registration nine months later but still managed to cast a ballot in September 2023, when the Bridgeport mayoral primary election was held. She claimed she learned of her error when attempting to apply for citizenship.
Hernandez's complaint has since been submitted to the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission.
"The consequences for noncitizens attempting to vote are serious, including deportation, fines and imprisonment," said Jeannette Dardenne, a spokesperson for the Connecticut Secretary of State's Office.
Frank Riccio, an attorney representing Castillo, declined the CT Mirror's request for comment while John Gulash, Geter-Pataky’s attorney, and Mayor Ganim did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement to Blaze News, Carol Platt Liebau — president of the Yankee Institute, a political watchdog group in Connecticut — lamented that citizens voting in good faith are the ultimate victims of any voter fraud scheme, which she called the greatest "threat to democracy."
"Every vote that is cast illegally cancels out the ballot of a legal voter — and often, these days, that means the ballot of a new citizen who waited in line and went to great trouble and expense to become an American citizen in accordance with the law," she said.
"Democracy doesn’t fall in one blow — it’s chipped away with each act of dishonesty that undermines the integrity of our elections. American elections are for American citizens — who cast their votes free of corruption or coercion," Yankee Institute fellow Frank Ricci, a Connecticut fire chief, added in a statement to Blaze News.
Geter-Pataky has also been accused of stuffing the ballot box just before the contentious 2023 Democratic mayoral primary after surveillance cameras at city hall appeared to show her deposit stacks of ballots in the early-morning hours of September 5, 2023.
That primary election was so rife with irregularities that a judge later tossed the results and demanded a new primary be held. Ganim prevailed in both the general election and the primary re-do over challenger John Gomes.
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