State Rep. Fishbein Offers Amendment to Punish Election Fraudsters

House Republicans Propose Election Integrity Reforms in Special Session

During debate on election-related legislation in the House of Representatives today, State Representative Craig Fishbein (R-90) introduced an amendment to increase penalties for those convicted of improper or illegal election tampering.

The legislature was in special session to take up various matters, including some technical changes to election law initiatives. However, in the days leading up to the session, wild accusations of alleged absentee ballot fraud in Bridgeport’s mayoral primary, including video, emerged, prompting Republicans to offer key amendments to address the issue. In response, House Republicans proposed several initiatives to reduce or eliminate absentee ballot fraud, strengthen monitoring, and provide serious penalties for illegal ballot tampering, including making it a Class D felony and requiring a mandatory sentence of one year in prison.

“Unfortunately, and despite incredible video clips being shown on local television news alleging potential absentee ballot tampering in Bridgeport, this simple amendment – and several others – to secure ballot boxes and penalize bad actors were defeated on party-line votes by majority party Democrats,” Rep. Fishbein said. “I’m not surprised they voted against a Republican amendment, but I’m having trouble understanding why they would vote against securing ballots and making certain all of our elections are free and fair. It’s very troubling.”

The three amendments Republicans introduced Tuesday were to:

• Require a mandatory minimum 1-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of a criminal election violation (LCO 10328);
• Eliminate statewide use of absentee ballot drop boxes, which were introduced in 2020 in response to concerns about the spread of COVID-19 (LCO 10321);
• Authorize the designated elections monitor in Bridgeport to ban the use of absentee drop boxes in the city (LCO 10335)

Democrats defeated an amendment to allow the Bridgeport elections monitor to ban the use of drop boxes there. The other Republican amendments were defeated on procedural grounds.