Bridgeport ballots counted; Malloy wins
Brittany Lyte, Ken Dixonand Timothy Loh, Staff Writers
Published: 06:37 a.m., Friday, November 5, 2010
BRIDGEPORT -- Bringing to a close a tumultuous governor's race, weary elections officials have finished their overnight count of the long-awaited Bridgeport vote. Their unofficial tally vaults Democrat Dan Malloy to victory over Republican Tom Foley.
Malloy received 17,800 votes while Foley got 4,075, after absentee ballots were tabulated. A few dozen ballots remain to be counted. The total erases Foley's lead and would appear to make it difficult for him to demand a recount.
The Bridgeport vote tallies will now be submitted to Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, who will declare the unofficial winner of the race.
The vote totals posted earlier on the secretary of the state's website, which include totals for all of the state's municipalities except Bridgeport, showed that Foley leads Malloy, 556,787 to 548,378.
Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch is expected to announce the final vote totals at a news conference at 6 a.m. Friday in City Hall Annex.
A bag of uncounted ballots found in McLevy Hall earlier had plunged the already chaotic governor's election into further confusion, prompted a new round of political accusations and delayed until Friday the expected announcement from state officials that Malloy had triumphed.
Even as Foley's campaign demanded the ballots be taken by State Police to Hartford for counting by a neutral authority, city officials insisted the existence of the ballots previously had been disclosed and that Bridgeport election workers would count them Thursday night.
The ballots from the John F. Kennedy Campus were never tallied because poll workers refused to count them on election night, according to Richard Albrecht, an attorney for Foley's campaign. City officials and counting observers said there were 355 ballots in the bag, a small fraction of the more than 20,000-plus ballots cast.
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http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Bridgeport-ballots-counted-Malloy-wins-797923.php