Airey v. Feliciano

Citations

• 352 Conn. 639

Syllabus

Pursuant to statute (§ 9-329a (b) (3)), when a candidate who claims to be aggrieved by a ruling of an election official in connection with a primary election files a complaint in the Superior Court, the court must hold a hearing, and, ''if [the court] finds any error in the ruling of the election official,'' it may ''order a new primary if [it] finds that but for the error . . . the result of [the] primary might have been different and [it] is unable to determine the result of such primary.'' The intervening defendants, a slate of candidates seeking to appear on the ballot for a primary election for the Democratic Town Committee for the seventh voting district of the city of Hartford, appealed from the decision of the trial court, which denied their motion for a new primary election on the ground that the court lacked authority to order a new primary. Previously, certain Hartford election officials had certified the intervening defendants' slate for the primary, as well as a competing slate consisting of the plaintiffs. A prior court determined that the intervening defendants were not qualified for the primary and canceled the primary. Thereafter, this court upheld the prior court's determination that the intervening defendants were not qualified for the primary and also concluded that the plaintiffs were not qualified. On appeal from the denial of the motion for a new primary election in the present case, the intervening defendants claimed, inter alia, that the trial court had incorrectly determined that it lacked authority to order a new primary election under § 9-329a (b) (3). Held: The trial court correctly concluded that it lacked authority under § 9-329a (b) (3) to order a new primary election under the circumstances of this case. The remedy afforded by § 9-329a (b) (3) for an error in an election official's ruling, namely, a new primary, contemplates a contested primary election that has been held or will be held, but, when the intervening defendants moved fo