October 22, 2024 – Alfredo Castillo, a City Council Representative for the 136th District since 2013, has been in the news a lot lately.

In June, Mr. Castillo was arrested on election fraud charges stemming from Bridgeport’s 2019 mayoral primary. In July, body cam footage was released of a combative traffic stop in Fairfield where he refused to comply with the police officer’s orders. In August, the CT Post broke the story that Mr. Castillo has evaded Bridgeport car taxes for years by registering his cars in Shelton. In September, the Secretary of State received a formal report from Bridgeport’s election monitors warning that Mr. Castillo and others have been abusing curbside voting.

And finally, just this week, we learned that Mr. Castillo has been accused of pressuring a permanent legal resident to register to vote and apply for an absentee ballot, even though he knew she wasn’t eligible to vote.

So we want to know: Why is Alfredo Castillo still on City Council? Why has he not resigned? And why has there been zero public pressure from high-ranking local officials calling for his resignation?

June 12, 2024 – At the end of the 2019 “Lazar v. Ganim” trial, Judge Barry Stevens said the plaintiffs – Beth Lazar, Vanessa Liles, and Annette Goodridge (three Bridgeport voters) – were successful in identifying serious election-related crimes. The crimes had been uncovered through a 6-day canvass, organized by Bridgeport Generation Now Votes and PT Partners.

What we learned during that canvass and the subsequent trial is that these election crimes are part of a system: A system that was built by and for white people in Bridgeport to hold onto consolidated political power, in the face of a rapidly diversifying city. It’s no secret that absentee ballot abuse has been an issue in Bridgeport for decades. The question is – who designed it, who trained people to do it, and who continues to benefit politically from it?

“Democracy is a goal to which our nation is marching … out of the darkness of slavery to the light of freedom.”

Civil rights pioneer Mary McLeod Bethune uttered those words on a NBC radio program in 1939. It is a goal the country has yet to fully realize.

However, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago we marched one step closer, to the light of freedom, when Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black and Asian-American woman officially accepted the nomination to be our party’s candidate for president of the United States of America.

Every eligible Bridgeport voter, be they Democrats, Republicans, Independents or Unaffiliated must have the opportunity to vote on Feb. 27 in the general election for mayor. It’s the American way.

Political operatives working on behalf of the local Democratic Party break election laws and target and manipulate some of our most vulnerable voters, all for the purpose of controlling the outcomes of our local elections.

There is a terrifying thing happening in Bridgeport, election after election, as well as in our country and across the world. Criminal strongmen and women, who are caught “red-handed,” are being rewarded for their crimes rather than being punished. And the people who speak up, speak out and tell the truth are the ones being vilified. There seems to be a growing hunger for fascism. And the everyday voter is left feeling scared and confused.