Bridgeport city councilor accused of registering non-citizen to vote

Bridgeport City Councilman Alfredo Castillo allegedly convinced a woman who is not a U.S. citizen to illegally register to vote in 2023 and persuaded her to request an absentee ballot he cast for her, according to a recently unsealed complaint.

The complaint, which was sent to the Connecticut State Election Enforcement Commission earlier this month, is the latest allegation of potential criminal wrongdoing to emerge from Bridgeport’s 2023 Democratic primary election which resulted in numerous mail fraud charges and a ruling by a state Superior Court judge. decision to annul the results of the city’s mayoral election.

Several election enforcement cases stemming from this primary — including allegations that political operatives instructed people how to vote or illegally took possession of voters’ ballots — have already been referred to state prosecutors for possible criminal charges.

But the most recent complaint includes something the previous ones didn’t: an accusation that a Bridgeport official knowingly registered and voted for someone who was ineligible to vote.

The complaint accuses Castillo of informing Arianna Hernandez, who is a legal permanent resident of the United States, that she could sign the paperwork to become a registered voter, even though she allegedly informed him at the time that she did not. Wasn’t American. citizen.

The complaint also states that Castillo, with the help of Wanda Geter-Pataky, vice chair of the Bridgeport Democratic Party, helped Hernandez request an absentee ballot, which the councilman then allegedly cast before the 2023 Democratic primary. the city.

During this same period, Castillo was running for re-election to his seat on the city council. He and Geter-Pataky were also supporters of Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, who ran in a competitive primary against fellow Democrat John Gomes.

“I never filled out the absentee ballot, but I signed it because Alfredo told me he would fill it out,” Hernandez wrote in the complaint, which was translated from Spanish into English by a Connecticut State Trooper.

“After signing it, Alfredo put all the forms in an envelope,” Hernández added. “I have never gone to the post office to mail documents. He told me I would have no problem becoming a permanent resident and convinced me to sign everything.

Castillo and Geter-Pataky already face criminal charges for election crimes related to the 2019 Bridgeport Democratic primary, including allegations that they illegally possessed other voters’ mail-in ballots.

Geter-Pataky could also face criminal charges related to the 2023 Bridgeport primary, after she was captured on surveillance footage allegedly placing stacks of absentee ballots in a drop box before the election.

Frank Riccio, Castillo’s defense attorney, said Thursday that his client had reviewed the complaint but declined to comment. John Gulash, Geter-Pataky’s attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.

Ganim, who was re-elected mayor earlier this year after new court-ordered primary and general elections, did not respond to a request for comment sent to his city spokesperson.

In a phone interview with the Connecticut Mirror, Hernandez repeated the allegations she made in the complaint, which was compiled after meeting with a state police detective.

Hernandez said she provided the information to the detective after someone helping her with a citizenship application informed her that she should not be registered to vote and that she was not not eligible to vote.

She told the CT Mirror how Castillo and a stranger knocked on her door sometime in 2023 and told her they needed votes. She pointed out that she informed Castillo that she was not a U.S. citizen, but she said he promised it wouldn’t be a problem.

Records reviewed by the CT Mirror show that Hernandez was officially registered to vote in February 2023 and that she withdrew her registration in November 2023. The records also indicate, however, that a ballot was cast in his name alongside more than 10,000 other Bridgeport voters during the poll. primary in the city in September 2023.

It is unclear what information Hernández provided, as part of the registration process, to obtain permission to vote from local election authorities.

Permanent residents of Connecticut can receive Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses, which the state typically uses to verify new voters.

Jeannette Dardenne, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Secretary of State’s office, said voter registration forms used in Connecticut clearly state that a person must be a citizen to legally vote in the state. And she noted that the application also lists penalties for submitting a fraudulent registration form.

“The consequences for non-citizens who attempt to vote are severe, including deportation, fines and imprisonment,” she said.

Hernandez, who communicates primarily in Spanish, alleged in the SEEC complaint that she failed to fill out most voter registration forms, including the box that requires the applicant to confirm they are a U.S. citizen.

She said she only signed the form. She wasn’t sure when the rest of the document was completed.

In Connecticut, voter registration materials are available in Spanish and English. It is unclear which version Hernandez signed.

It is legal for permanent residents – commonly known as green card holders – to vote in local political elections in some parts of the country, such as Washington DC, San Francisco, and several municipalities in Vermont and Maryland. But federal and state laws generally limit voting in other elections to U.S. citizens, including in Connecticut.

Voting illegally as a noncitizen can be grounds for deportation under federal law, even if the person has legal status in the country.

It is also a crime in Connecticut to fraudulently register another person to vote.

Hernandez said she has been a permanent resident of the United States for 20 years and has spent those two decades in the country working, paying taxes and caring for her children.

She said she made a mistake trusting Castillo.

Documents obtained by the CT Mirror show that Castillo and Geter-Pataky played at least some role in helping Hernandez request an absentee ballot.

The serial number on the absentee ballot application signed by Hernandez indicates it was one of the forms Castillo obtained from local elections officials in January 2023. And Geter-Pataky signed the bottom of this document, claiming she helped Hernandez fill out the application.

Hernandez’s complaint, however, states that she does not know who Geter-Pataky is.

“I do not know who the lady Wanda Patakey is who signed the form stating that she helped me,” the complaint states.

The allegation that Castillo, an elected official in Connecticut’s largest city, persuaded someone who is not a U.S. citizen to vote could stoke existing fears about non-citizen voting in elections.

Former President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders have repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that noncitizens vote in large enough numbers to swing political elections.

Yet when officials in other states have investigated these complaints in the past, they have found that instances of non-citizen voting are rare and incapable of swinging election results, particularly in presidential elections that bring together millions of voters.

The North Carolina Election Board looked into the issue after the 2016 election, for example, and found that out of 4.8 million people who voted, there were 41 cases of non-citizens voting in this statewide election. All of these people were permanent residents, meaning they were in the country legally but did not have the right to vote. And there were so few of them that it was not possible for them to win even the weakest elections in the state.

Even so, the complaints that continue to pour into Bridgeport could provide additional ammunition for Republican lawmakers across the country who want to push for new voting restrictions and additional requirements to confirm voters’ citizenship status.

Republican leaders in the House of Representatives passed a bill earlier this year that would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote federally. However, this bill was not adopted by the US Senate.

Rep. Vincent Candelora, Republican leader in the Connecticut House of Representatives, said the complaint reiterates the need for reform of the state’s mail-in voting process.

Candelora said this underscores the need to completely remove candidates, campaigns and political operatives from the absentee ballot process, and he noted that Massachusetts limits the right to family members to request an absentee ballot for a other voter.

He believes adopting this type of system in Connecticut would protect vulnerable voters from possible manipulation by candidates and campaigns, as the Bridgeport complaints alleged.

“I think we need to look at a process that doesn’t allow third parties to prey on people, whether they’re legally able to vote or not,” Candelora said. “There are vulnerable populations in Connecticut who are being preyed upon to try to take away their vote.”

The court ruling that overturned the results of Bridgeport’s 2023 mayoral primary put the city in the national spotlight, but allegations of voter fraud in the city are not new. Bridgeport has a long history of election scandals, particularly when it comes to mail-in voting.

A former Bridgeport city councilman, Michael DeFilippo, for example, pleaded guilty earlier this year after prosecutors accused him of falsifying voter registration documents and absentee ballot applications from tenants of several apartments he owned during his re-election campaign in 2017 and 2018.

The complaint against Castillo will now be investigated by staff of the State Election Enforcement Commission and it will be up to that body to decide whether Castillo or Geter-Pataky should be fired again for possible criminal charges.

This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror.