Bysiewicz Waiting On Bridgeport

It's been nearly two days since the polls closed and Connecticut residents still don't know who their next governor will be.  WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports.

 

On Wednesday, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz released what she called "unofficial" results.  And those results had Democrat Dan Malloy as the winner over Republican Tom Foley by about 3,000 votes.  Malloy held a press conference to announce his transition team, while Foley challenged the unofficial results and their release.

 

But a day later, Bysiewicz said that she could not yet announce an official winner.  Although 168 of the state's 169 municipalities had reported their election results, the last one -- Bridgeport -- had not. 

 

"Where we are is that on our web site we have official results for 168 towns and we are still awaiting the moderator return from Bridgeport.  We understood that at approximately three o'clock they began work again having gone home.  Now they are there working on it and we are anxious to receive it."

 

Bridgeport got itself into trouble the night of the election, when it became clear the city's elections officials had only ordered 21,000 ballots for nearly 70,000 registered voters.

 

Without Bridgeport's results, the state's online numbers show Foley ahead by more than 8,000 votes.  And now, we wait.

 

"We don't know when we're going to receive the numbers and we just wanted to let you know that we do not know what Bridgeport's timing is."

 

Meanwhile, Malloy's campaign said in a press release that he is confident he'll win, and he's confident there won't be a recount.

 

For WNPR, I'm Jeff Cohen.