Cohen v. Rossi

Citations

• 346 Conn. 642

Syllabus

The plaintiff, the Republican mayoral candidate for the city of West Haven in the November, 2021 election, sought a writ of mandamus compelling the defendants, including H, the West Haven city clerk, and certain other West Haven election officials, to set aside the mayoral election results. The plaintiff appeared to have lost the election by a slim margin, but the closeness of the election triggered an automatic recanvass, and the certified election results following the recanvass showed that the plaintiff had lost by thirty-two votes. The plaintiff claimed, inter alia, that the election officials had failed to adequately comply with various statutes governing the absentee ballot process, including the provision (§ 9-140c (a)) requiring, inter alia, the municipal clerk to endorse over his or her signature, on each outer ballot envelope as the clerk receives it, the date and time it is received, the provision (§ 9-140c (j)) requiring the municipal clerk and the registrars of voters, each time the clerk delivers absentee ballots to the registrars for counting, to execute affida- vits of delivery and receipt stating the number of ballots delivered, and the provision (§ 9-140b (a)) governing the manner in which voters or certain designated persons must return absentee ballots to the municipal clerk. The evidence established that the West Haven City Clerk's Office received 720 absentee ballot envelopes either by United States mail, in- person delivery, or through a voter's or designee's depositing the ballot in one of three secure drop boxes that are located throughout West Haven. Typically, upon receipt by the City Clerk's Office, the absentee ballots, sealed in inner and outer envelopes, were time-stamped, endorsed by H using a stamp with a facsimile of her signature, and logged into the electronic state database, from which an absentee ballot report was produced. H testified that she personally retrieved the absen- tee ballot envelopes from the drop boxes about, or at