McMahon Hires Former State GOP Chair to Guard Against “Voting Irregularities”

Linda McMahon’s U.S. Senate campaign has retained the former chairman of the Connecticut Republican party to monitor the election following a comment by Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch.

At a campaign stop on Friday, Finch told McMahon’s Democratic opponent, Chris Murphy, that the turnout will be big in the state’s largest city. “We may come a couple of days late,” Finch said. “You can be guaranteed you’re going to get the vote. See the tracker video below.

To the McMahon campaign, the remark conjured up questions about votes in Bridgeport during the extremely close gubernatorial election.

“Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch is at it again, and this time he’s offering up his city’s election shenanigans with a guarantee for Congressman Chris Murphy,” McMahon campaign manager Corry Bliss said in a press release issued Sunday.

“After hand-delivering the governor’s office to Democrats in 2010, Finch’s brazen disregard for a valid and secured election result has been captured on video for the whole world to see. For his part, Congressman Murphy should be ashamed of himself for laughing along at Mayor Finch’s suggestion. Only someone with Congressman Murphy’s ethical lapses, living under ‘Murphy’s Law,’ would find humor in Finch’s inappropriate comments. Members of Congress and candidates for U.S. Senate should never joke about election fraud.”

Bridgeport ran out of ballots and switched to photocopied ballots in a mistake-ridden process. However Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley conceded that the various problems did not change the outcome. (Foley had hired a team of experts to review the election and “[t]hey found no credible evidence of fraudulent voting,” he said on the day he conceded the race. “I am disappointed that the team reported a chaotic situation on election day and its aftermath in Bridgeport. … They also believe the number of votes by which the Bridgeport results are likely to be wrong would not, on its own, change the outcome of the race.”)

Nevertheless, the McMahon campaign has retained Herb Shepardson, an attorney and the former chairman of the state Republican party. The campaign says Shepardson will “respond immediately to any issues that may arise on Election Day and will oversee a team of election monitors” to guard against possible irregularities.

Shepardson wasted no time: he has already sent letters to Finch and Murphy asking them to clarify Finch’s comments.