Just days before Tuesday’s primary election, accusations of voting and campaign misconduct flew from both sides in the West Rock aldermanic race.
Within two days of each other, West Rock aldermanic candidates Carlton Staggers (pictured in left photo) and Darnell Goldson (pictured in right photo) issued dueling complaints to the State Election Commission.
On Friday, the Staggers campaign accused the Goldson campaign of voter fraud.
On Sunday, the Goldson campaign accused the Staggers campaign of hiding campaign expenditures that it is required to report.
The accusations against Goldson campaign stem from early voting that took place on Thursday at the West Rock Health Care Center, on Level Street, a home for individuals with physical and mental disabilities. Residents there are permitted to vote early through a supervised balloting program, which requires that voting be monitored by Registrar of Voters officials and representatives from each campaign.
In a statement released Friday, Ben Shaffer (pictured), a Staggers representative, said that he witnessed biased election managing and possible ballot tampering in favor of Goldson during an advance voting session at the assisted living facility on Thursday.
Shaffer, a paid staffer for Mayor DeStefano’s reelection campaign, was acting as an observer for the Staggers campaign. In a written complaint submitted to the State Election Enforcement Commission, Shaffer said that he was prevented from observing some of the voting; that registrar of voters officials acted improperly and in some cases seemed to be attempting to influence voters to select Goldson’s name; and that Goldson representative Donna Perry was handling ballots illegally. Read that complaint here.
William “Chubby” King, a Registrar of Voters official accused of misconduct by Shaffer, called the accusations false. Shaffer was the one behaving improperly during voting, King claimed. He further said that Staggers had illegally attempted to campaign at the health center just 45 minutes before voting began.
Goldson (at left in photo) later issued a statement decrying the Staggers campaign’s accusations of voter fraud. He called them “an act of desperation” that violated the Clean Campaign Pledge that Staggers had drafted and signed.
On Sunday, Goldson sent out a notice that his campaign had filed its own complaint with the State Elections Commission, accusing the Staggers campaign of not disclosing all of its campaign expenditures, as required by law. Budget documents filed by the Staggers camp did not include the cost of promotional flyers distributed in the ward, the Goldson campaign said. Read that complaint here.
Illegal Voting?
Shaffer’s statement objects to a number of behaviors that he observed during Thursday’s voting.
Shaffer said that Perry and the ballot box arrived and left in the same car as King and Powell-King, who he described as allegedly “close personal friends” of Goldson.
Shaffer said that during voting in the center’s dining room, he was told by Perry (who he misnames as “Pearson” in his statement) or Powell-King that he was to be paired with Powell-King and that Perry would be paired with King. The two pairs were to sit at one voting table each, Shaffer said he was told. Shaffer refused to do so, and moved between the tables in an attempt to monitor both at once.
Shaffer said that King and Perry did not provide assistance to a voter who said “Carlton.”
Shaffer said that the two pairs later split up and visited residents in their rooms in the two wings of the center, which prevented Shaffer from observing all of the balloting. While in a resident’s room, Shaffer noticed Goldson literature on a table by the bed, in violation of the rule that the voting area must be free of campaign materials. Shaffer said that he pointed this out to Powell-King, who pushed the material to the back of the table and continued with voting.
During voting in residents’ bedrooms, Shaffer said that he noticed five occasions when Powell-King, “while instructing the voter to fill in the oval,… pointed to the oval corresponding to Goldson and moved her finger in a circle around the oval.”
Upon returning to the dining room, Shaffer said that he saw Perry carrying five or six sealed ballots.
In a phone conversation, Shaffer said that the Staggers campaign will decide how to pursue the fraud complaints depending on how the vote turns out on Tuesday. Since there were 32 ballots cast at the center on Thursday, if the vote count on Tuesday is within 32 votes, the campaign may try to have the center’s ballots thrown out. The Staggers press release describes the ballots as “spoiled.”
Biased Behavior?
“I felt uncomfortable with Ben because he seemed to be a little paranoid,” Perry said. “He was really jumpy.”
She denied doing anything illegal during balloting.
Perry said that Shaffer was not fulfilling his instructions from Registrar of Voters Sharon Ferrucci to be “bipartisan.”
“We were supposed to be there working for Sharon,” Perry said. “We weren’t supposed to be working for any particular person.”
Reached by phone, King denied any and all charges of misconduct. “That is 100 percent not true,” he said of Shaffers statement.
“Instead of monitoring, it looked like he was counting ballots,” King said of Shaffer. “You’re supposed to be non-biased.”
“I’ve been doing this for five years,” he said. “I have never done anything illegal.”
King said that the elderly and hearing-impaired residents at the center often need to have the ballot explained to them very loudly and carefully. That’s why Shaffer may have heard Staggers’ name called out at one point.
Residents also often have impaired vision, and the oval on the ballot is very light and hard to see so it needs to be pointed out carefully, he said.
As for the charges that Perry handled ballots improperly, King said that she only handled ballots that had already been sealed. “I was with her the whole time,” he said.
And giving Perry a lift? “Every election you see people carpooling together,” King said. “You’re still non-partisan to what’s going on.”
King said that he knows Staggers and Goldson, but that he is not a “close personal friend” of Goldson. The two are Facebook friends, Goldson later said.
King said that tensions are running high in aldermanic races around the city as election day nears. “I’ve never seen it this bad,” he said
In a release issued on Friday evening, Goldson said that all of Shaffer’s allegations are false. “This is an act of desperation in the final four days leading up to the election”, Goldson is quoted as saying. “I guess the clean campaign pledge he so publically signed a few weeks ago isn’t worth the paper the city administration wrote it on. We expected a last minute attempt to mud sling, we’re only surprised that they would attempt to sully the good name and reputation of the Voter Registrar’s office. With his past and current legal and trust issues, Staggers should be very careful about whom he accuses of ‘violating the public trust’ and ‘dirty’”.
Last Minute Campaigning?
After answering to Shaffer’s accusations, King had an accusation of his own to make. He said that the Staggers campaign had contacted the health care center in an attempt to have Staggers come in to meet with residents 45 minutes before voting was to begin. “That’s very illegal,” King said.
For the older people at the center, “they only remember who comes in the place last,” King said. The centers recreation coordinator had refused Staggers’ request, according to King.
Shaffer acknowledged that the Staggers campaign had contacted the health center on Tuesday to see if Staggers could visit on Thursday before voting. The center’s recreation coordinator had told the campaign that that would be unfair, but permitted Staggers to visit on Wednesday, which he did, Shaffer said.
“I find it very interesting that Mr. King seems to know what the Staggers campaign is doing,” Shaffer said. He said that although King was “talking about being nonpartisan,” his knowledge of Staggers campaign activities is “very concerning.”