If Senator Dodd had a serious challenger in 2010, he could lose. Fifty-one percent said they were unlikely to vote for Dodd in 2010 -- and that includes 32 percent who said they definitely won't vote for Dodd.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal remains popular, and if he ever decided to run against Lieberman, Blumenthal would likely win in a route. In a head-to-head race, Blumenthal leads Lieberman in the poll by 58% to 30%.
Governor Rell remains popular, and the Democrats running against her have a lot of work to do. Susan Bysiewicz has an early big lead over the other Democratic contenders.
"If the Democratic primary for governor were being held today and the candidates were Dan Malloy, Susan Bysiewicz and Jim Amann, for whom would you vote?"
Forty-four percent of Democrats polled answered Bysiewicz, Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy followed with 12 percent and former Speaker of the House James Amann trailed the pack with 4 percent.
Check out the poll here. What else jumps out at you?
(If anyone else has more information, or can figure this one out, be my guest. - promoted by Scarce)
Shelton reported on election night that Jim Himes had defeated Chris Shays, which most of us thought was screwy because it had also voted for McCain/Palin and is known to be heavily republican. (There were only a handful of Connecticut towns which shared this dubious distinction.)
However, the final (maybe -- see below) tally's as recorded by the CT Secretary of State are:
The state-mandated recount also found U.S. Rep.-elect Jim Himes received 1,000 fewer votes in Shelton than previously thought. His district wide margin over outgoing 4th District Rep. Christopher Shays was fewer than 4,000 votes, so if the mistake had been too much larger, we could have been looking at Florida 2000 in southwestern Connecticut.
In Shelton, though, the repercussions are serious enough. What was originally thought to be a 267-vote victory turned out to be a defeat of 1,800 votes.
We're not sure where the 1800 figure comes from. It could be wrong.
Easton also produced problematic results, as it was reported Jim Himes won there as well. The numbers still appear to be wrong on the SOTS website.
As yet we've heard nothing from Susan Bysiewicz on these matters. Here is what she said on Nov 13th:
"Nov. 4th was an historic day for voters in Connecticut," Bysiewicz said. "As voters came to the polls in droves, they must have continued confidence that their votes were recorded accurately, and that's why the independent audits are so vital."
The audits will be performed by local election officials between Nov. 19 and 24.
"Auditing election results isn't just a good idea, it's absolutely essential in order to guarantee the integrity of our elections," she said. "Connecticut has the toughest elections audit law in the country, and I am confident at the end of this year's audit the numbers will match."
Bysiewicz certified the election results today. Since the SOTS website doesn't look reliable we'll see if we can find the final certified numbers somewhere and see if things do indeed add up.
Tuesday was the official launch of a system to publicly finance elections in Connecticut called the "Citizens' Election Program" which was passed in 2005 and was first utilized in special elections held last year. Connecticut Citizen Action Group, Common Cause, and the League of Women Voters were among the organizations thanked for their efforts in pushing for this landmark campaign finance reform.
State Elections Enforcement Commission director Jeff Garfield describes the Citizens' Election Program as a "'Clean Money' system of financing elections" and it did not go without saying at the launch event that the necessity of this reform was amplified by the events leading up to Governor Rowland's resignation in 2004.
One of the goals of the program is to limit the dependence of candidates on special interest money, and it does so by requiring candidates to raise a minimum amount of contributions from district residents. State Senate Candidates need to get contributions from a minimum of 300 district residents while State Representative candidates need contributions from a minimum of 150 district residents. District residency is defined to include residents of any municipality that is wholly or partially included in the district. Christine Stuart of CT News Junkie was at the launch, and succinctly describes the remaining financial requirements and rewards:
Candidates running for state Senate must raise $15,000 in contributions from individuals to qualify for the $85,000 grant, while candidates running for a state House seat must raise $5,000 from individuals in order to qualify for the $25,000 grant.
As it stands, there is not a lot of competition in the health care marketplace: non-profits, small businesses, and municipalities do not have bargaining power on their own to negotiate lower rates, and no one entity among them represents a large enough group for insurers to vie for their business. These small unaffiliated groups are forced to pay higher rates than they would as members of a larger pool. By signing HB 5536, Governor Rell will increase competition in the health care marketplace because all of the state's major insurers will be able to bargain for the contract to cover what seems to me would be the second largest insurance pool in Connecticut.
"I think we had an extremely smooth day and voters were very pleased," said Secretary of the State Susan L. Bysiewicz, whose office supervises elections in the state, and has overseen the transition to optical scan machines. Bysiewicz said her office had received "very nice unsolicited calls" from voters on Tuesday praising the new machines.
Yes, the optical scan machines seem to have worked OK, by and large. (We'll have a better idea once the mandatory recounts of close races and sample audits are finished).
But as MikeCT notes in a comment at CTLP, it's worth recalling that Bysiewicz is essentially taking credit for a system she had vehemently and consistently opposed:
She tried her best to get things wrong, insisting on a touch screen system over the vociferous objections of registrars of voters and democracy advocates, writing her RFP for voting machines to specifically exclude optical scan machines, refusing to listen to or meet with critics, harrassing her opponents (sending a letter to the boss of a professor critical of the new machines), and finally reversing course when the opposition became overwhelming and when it became clear that her chosen vendor couldn't meet the requirements of the contract. It's a pattern with her. Take the wrong stance until it becomes totally politically unviable, then take credit for your smart decisions when you're forced to reverse yourself.
Bysiewicz's stated preference for Diebold-esque touch-screen machines goes all the way back to the summer of 2001, just months after the election day 2000 debacle. (Actually, Diebold subsidiary LHS manufactures the optical scan machines used in CT.) Even now, she routinely dismisses critics and skeptics of new voting technology as "conspiracy theorists" (see her interview from Monday - mp3).
Tomorrow evening Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz will be stopping by My Left Nutmeg to guest post about several items on the legislative agenda including:
• Election Day Registration
• 17 year-old voting
• Pension revocation for corrupt officials.
• The so-called "sore loser" law or also known as Lieberman Law.
The Secretary of State Bysiewicz will also be online to answer your questions on any topic so make sure to have your list of items ready, stop by tomorrow between 5 and 6 P.M. and help welcome Secretary of State Bysiewicz to the MLN community
Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz has certified both Orman and the party's new by laws, which limit party membership to "critics of the Senator and anyone named Lieberman".
"If someone wanted to challenge it, they'd have to go to court," said Ted Bromley, a state elections attorney for Bysiewicz's office. . . .
Bromley said the secretary of the state's office has determined it is not responsible for ruling whether Orman is the party's legitimate chairman. Bromley said Connecticut for Lieberman is a minor party, by virtue of Lieberman's November victory, and the secretary of the state will keep Orman's rules on file.
Orman said he plans to use his position as party chairman to hold Lieberman accountable.
"It's a watchdog, accountability party with a line guaranteed in the next Senate race," Orman said.
Typically, Lieberman ran from press questions about the issue.
Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said Lieberman had 7,700 validated signatures. The campaign collected more than 18,500 signatures, but Bysiewicz's office stopped counting when employees determined Lieberman had enough names.
Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz has called a press conference for 11 am today (Aug 23) to discuss "Senator Lieberman's candidacy, as well as the efforts of other petitioning parties seeking to get on the ballot for statewide office."
It's in room 104 of the State Capitol, in case any of you are within striking distance.
The Bush Administration is coming to the aid of their favorite son in the form of a lawsuit by U.S. attorney Kevin J. O'Connor that could have the effect of extending the primary until August 28th for overseas absentee ballots only.
The excuse is that 81 towns were late in sending out absentee ballots to overseas voters, most of them military. Some 700 ballots were affected.
Avi "Don't Be Crude" Salzman reports in tomorrow's New York Times (no link):
By Connecticut law, absentee ballots must be received by the time the polls close on the day of the primary, which is 8 p.m. this year. States are supposed to send the ballots out at least 30 days before the election, so that soldiers and opthers have time to fil them out and return them, the suit said.
Susan "I'm For Joe" Bysiewicz immediately caved, winning praise from O'Connor for her speedy acquiesence.
CT's Dem field for statewide office is so fluid now with Susan Bysiewicz jumping out of the race for Governor that anything is possible.
Blumenthal's office received quite a few phone calls on Friday encouraging him to run for Senate in '06 and the screws are tightening on Lieberman because of his incompetent oversight of Homeland Security and his insistence
Tomorrow evening 
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