Bissonnette ‘to get to the bottom’ of fraudulent signatures
Date: 9/28/2011
Sept. 28, 2011By G. Michael Dobbs
Managing Editor
CHICOPEE — Mayor Michael Bissonnette is among those city officials who would like to know how signatures on the petitions used to place a question on the ballot appear to be fraudulent.
“I’d love to know myself,” Bissonnette told
Reminder Publications. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
He added, that as mayor, he takes responsibility.
Bissonnette explained when someone takes out a petition form, there is no record of who takes which form. When someone brings in a form a receipt can be given.
At this time, other than the sheets initialed by Bissonnette’s former chief of staff Christopher Nolan, there is no quick way of determining who was responsible for that petition.
Bissonnette added that none of the signatures collected by Nolan — whose position was cut by the City Council — were challenged.
After the Board of Registrars met on Sept. 21 and decertified enough signatures so the question concerning a four-year term for mayor will not appear on the ballot in November, City Councilors John Vieau and Dino Brunetti called for an investigation by the State Attorney General, the State Ethics Commission and the Secretary of State’s Office on Sept. 23.
“People are angry. This appears to have been a self-serving exercise carried out by the mayor’s political committee, with the help of the mayor and city solicitor. Voters and taxpayers have the right to expect the mayor to put their interests ahead of his own. The integrity of the ballot petition process has been greatly compromised,” Vieau said.
“This is the equivalent of identity theft, and people’s rights have been violated,” Brunetti said. “The level of fraud and forgery appears to be widespread.”
Former State Rep. Frank Lapointe, Bissonnette’s former chief of staff, organized the petition drive.
The board rejected 58 signatures, enough to prevent the question concerning whether or not the voters want the mayor’s term to be four years instead of two.
Vieau and Brunetti brought the challenge to the signatures last week, bringing in Attorney William McDermott to show the board what McDermott called fraudulent signatures.
Bissonnette described McDermott as an expert on petition challenges and issues.
Vieau said afterwards, “I’m pleased [about the outcome].”
While Vieau said he was not opposed to a four-year term, he is “opposed to someone defrauding the system.”
He added he is in favor of establishing a city charter commission to amend city government.
Vieau said the voters in his ward who realized their signature was wrongly on the petition were angry.
Brunetti explained that Vieau had brought the matter to his attention after Vieau had received a call from a constituent. City Councilor Frank Laflamme joined Vieau and Brunetti in examining the petitions to check for suspicious signatures.
Laflamme also brought people to the hearing who testified the signatures on the petition were not theirs and stated they had not signed the petition.
Brunetti said that he and Vieau were paying for McDermott’s services and were prepared to discuss bringing the issue to court if the board had not ruled in their favor.
McDermott alluded to a continued fight when he told the board that was the reason a court stenographer had been brought in to record the hearing.
McDermott showed frustration at times when the board refused to decertify some signatures, sticking to a premise they had to have testimony from the voter and could not be seen as handwriting experts.
“You’re turning a blind eye,” McDermott charged. “That’s why we have a stenographer.”
The board did accept sworn testimony from the city councilors that they has received telephone calls from specific voters who reported they had not signed the petition, something which Bissonnette found contradictory.
“It should have been all live testimony,” Bissonnette said.
The hearing lasted from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with an hour off for lunch. Besides calling citizens to the microphone to testify before the board, McDermott went page by page through the petitions, pointing out signatures he believed were fraudulent. In many instances, he cited pairs of signatures – most often those of married couples – that appeared to be in the same handwriting. State law stipulates a voter can only sign his or her own signature and no one else.
McDermott pointed out at least three petition pages on which the signatures were in alphabetical order — something he said just doesn’t happen in petition drives.
Out of the more than 150 petition sheets brought into the Board of Registrars, there were 180 signature challenges.
Brunetti, Vieau and Laflamme are among the city councilors who have been at odds with Bissonnette since they successfully led an effort to cut Bissonnette’s staff.
Brunetti said on the evening of Sept. 21, “There was nothing personal [about this challenge].”
Bissonnette said an examination of voter’s signature cards would help shed light on whether a signature was fraudulent.
He showed this writer one such card with a signature that apparently matched one that had been called into question.
The mayor agreed there should be a city charter commission, but added that state law allows for a stand-alone question such as this one to go on the ballot before the voters.
