Election Fraud Renders Scientific Election Forecasting Worthless

[Infolurker]

Oh look,

More election fraud... Absentee ballots, videos of people dropping tons of ballots in drop boxes... where oh where have we SEEN this before... something about mules with videos and gps evidence... 

House approves election monitor in Bridgeport to combat absentee ballot fraud

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/hou...r-AA1hiJms

The state House of Representatives voted Tuesday to hire an election monitor in Bridgeport to combat absentee ballot fraud after an alarming video surfaced in a recent primary for mayor.

Voters across the state were stunned by a widely seen video that shows a city employee repeatedly dropping ballots into a drop box outside the city’s government center one week before the Sept. 12 primary for mayor. The video was released by Democrat John Gomes, who received more votes on the election machines than incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim, but then lost the primary when Ganim pulled ahead with far more absentee votes.


Democrats said that appointing an election monitor for Bridgeport’s elections in November would be sufficient, along with any rulings by a Superior Court judge who is currently overseeing a civil lawsuit where Gomes has asked the court to block certification of the primary and order a new election.

Republicans, however, called for banning the outdoor ballot boxes permanently, saying they are no longer needed because the COVID-19 pandemic has ended. In addition, they want to essentially double the penalties for election law violations to a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine — up from the current maximum of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
They also want a mandatory minimum of one year in prison because some campaign operatives have been convicted of various actions and have not served prison time.
“It bans the drop boxes statewide, permanently,” said Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco, the ranking member of the committee overseeing elections. “They were never meant to be there permanently. There’s no need for them any more. … It’s not disenfranchising any voter.”

But House Speaker Matt Ritter of Hartford said an important first step was approving the monitor, a position that was expected to be in the state budget this year but an error in the language had mistakenly sent about $150,000 to another department. As such, lawmakers fixed the error Tuesday to allow the Secretary of the State to appoint the monitor for Bridgeport for both this year and the 2024 presidential election.
There is no reason, Ritter said, to ban the ballot collection boxes statewide, particularly in areas where there have been no complaints or problems.
“We don’t believe the wrecking ball approach is the right one here,” Ritter told reporters before the session. “I don’t know what you gain by banning a ballot box in Pomfret, Connecticut.”
Republicans offered an amendment for a mandatory minimum prison sentence, but Democrats argued that changing the penalties for a criminal statute was outside the agenda of the special session and could not be considered Tuesday. Instead, they said the criminal penalty would need to be considered by the judiciary committee when the next legislative session begins in February.
“A special session is meant to be special,” Ritter said. “We are restricted to business that is within that call. I don’t want to break with that precedent.”
Republicans then offered another amendment — more narrowly written — that would allow the newly appointed election monitor to ban the ballot boxes in Bridgeport.
“It’s just for Bridgeport,” Mastrofrancesco said of the amendment. “The legislature put the boxes there. It has the power to remove them.”
But Rep. Matthew Blumenthal, the co-chairman of the committee overseeing elections, said, “The elections monitor is not a state employee, not a state official. There’s no indication that they would have a law enforcement or judicial or even legal background. … The measures exist to take care of the problem already. … Banning the drop boxes in any jurisdiction is an extraordinarily serious decision to make.”


State Rep. Doug Dubitsky, a Republican attorney from eastern Connecticut, said the focus has been directly on Bridgeport but that officials need to look more broadly.


“These ballot drop boxes are rife with fraud,” Dubitsky said. “Who is monitoring the boxes in 168 other municipalities? … This exact same thing could be happening in every municipality in this state.”
The Republican amendment was rejected on a party line vote by 91-47 with 13 lawmakers absent.
Mastrofrancesco said stronger action needs to be taken.
“When does it end?” she asked. “How many times does somebody have to go to court to challenge an election because of an absentee ballot?”
Overall, Sen. Kevin Kelly of Stratford said the Republican proposals were not drastic.
“For years, we had these concerns about the drop boxes,” Kelly told reporters Tuesday.  “What’s different today is we have the video. … If they get caught, they need to go to jail. Simple as that. This is not taking a wrecking ball to anything.”

Soon after the House approval, the Senate began debating the election monitor.
Sen. Rob Sampson, a conservative Republican from Wolcott, said the state needs to do more.
“I don’t know that it goes far enough,” Sampson said. “No matter what, the video shows what can happen, and that has raised significant concerns.”
New Supreme Court justice
In other matters, the state Senate voted 31-2 in favor of approving Gov. Ned Lamont’s nomination of former federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy for a seat on the Connecticut Supreme Court. Two Republicans, Sampson and Lisa Seminara of Avon, voted against the nomination.
Soon after, the House approved Dannehy on a bipartisan basis by 120-18 with 13 members absent. The House then adjourned before 3 p.m. Tuesday.
During a public hearing on her nomination, Dannehy said that she resigned from a high-profile federal investigation because of improper political pressure from former U.S. Attorney General William Barr. She had not previously spoken publicly about her decision to leave the prosecutorial team led by a longtime colleague, former U.S. Attorney John Durham. Among other revelations, Dannehy said Barr had pressed investigators to write an interim report, while the investigation was still proceeding, that she feared might affect the outcome of the 2020 presidential election between then-President Donald J. Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.

Presidential primary date
In a bipartisan move, House lawmakers also voted to push up the presidential primary date by four weeks to make Connecticut more relevant in national politics. The measure for the primary was included in the same omnibus bill with the election monitor in Bridgeport. In a rare move, both Republican state chairman Ben Proto and longtime Democratic state chairwoman Nancy DiNardo had testified jointly in favor of the idea.
“The suggestion to move the date to the first week of April came to my attention at the request of leaders from both major political parties – Democrats and Republicans – who, in a bipartisan show of unity, feel that this shift will benefit all the voters in our state,” Lamont said. “I agree with them, and I urge the legislature to approve a bill changing the date so that I can sign it into law and we can make this change in time for the 2024 primaries.”
With much of the current national focus on Iowa and New Hampshire, Connecticut is fighting for relevancy by trying to move up the date for the Republican and Democratic primaries. The contests had been set for April 30, but now will be switched to Tuesday, April 2.