In the debate the Republican, Dominic Rapini, sought to cast himself as a defender of local and independent control of elections in each of the state’s 169 towns — while criticizing and at times exaggerating examples of faulty handling of elections by the Secretary of the State’s office under the last two decades of Democratic control.
Stephanie Thomas, a state representative from Norwalk who won her party’s nomination for the open seat, seized on Rapini’s comments as well as inaccurate claims he has made in the past regarding the results of the 2020 election, casting him as a spreader of “misinformation and extreme rhetoric.”
“As a leader, running around and screaming about fraud does not instill confidence,” Thomas said.
In response to the criticism, Rapini repeated his previous assurances that he does not doubt the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, but did not back down on his claims that voter fraud remains a significant issue in Connecticut, pointing to recent the recent guilty plea of a Democratic Party official in Stamford and allegations of irregularities in a Bridgeport primary election as examples of a systemic problem. He also repeated at least one debunked claim — that over 5,0000 unregistered Connecticut voters cast ballots in 2020 — to support his allegations.
“There is absolutely a culture of fraud in…
