Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, Tom Foley’s running mate on the GOP ticket for governor and lieutenant governor, said in an interview Friday morning that the city of Bridgeport was reporting conflicting vote tallies from Tuesday’s election.
He called into question the results that were announced at a morning news conference by Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch, saying that they didn’t jibe with the numbers from the registrars of voters, who still have not sent their final count to the secretary of the state.
“That’s our first step is to get firm numbers out of Bridgeport,” Boughton told Hearst Connecticut Newspapers by phone.
Despite allegations by many of his fellow Republicans of malfeasance in Bridgeport, Boughton was reluctant to point a finger.
“We’re certainly not ready to accuse anybody of anything,” Boughton said.
Boughton acknowledged that Democrats deserve a measure of credit for boosting voter turnout in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford, where the opposing campaign of Dannel Malloy won by a landslide.
“I’m not sure what kind of conspiracy could elevate turnout in three separate cities,” Boughton said.
Boughton urged Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz to go back to all 169 municipalities and re-verify the results from the ticker tape generated by the electronic voting machines.
He pointed out that the initial results for the city of Torrington posted on the SOTS website were corrected by Bysiewicz on Thursday after short-changing Foley by 2,000 votes.
“It might best serve the voters of Connecticut to have a recanvass,” Boughton said, emphasizing that he was speaking for himself and not the campaign.
Boughton said it would ultimately be Foley decision’s whether to pursue a recount.
“At this point, I think we just need to get the first count and we’ll worry about the recount later,” Boughton said.