State mental health employee accused of changing voter registrations to Democrat

An employee with the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services in Connecticut is accused of altering voter registration cards just weeks before the 2024 election.

On September 17, officials hosted a national voting event at the Western Connecticut Mental Health Network in Torrington, a city of about 35,000 residents in the northwestern corner of the state. By October, the Detective Division of the Torrington Police Department received a complaint about alleged voter registration fraud in connection with the event.

According to the complaint, a series of voter registration cards submitted to the Torrington Registrar of Voters Office clerk appeared to have been altered. After a thorough investigation, officers agreed that someone had deliberately changed cards marked with “Republican” or “no” party affiliation to “Democrat.”

A member of the city clerk’s office contacted police as well as the State Elections Enforcement Commission about the incident. Police and the SEEC coordinated and determined that 57-year-old Arlanda Brantley was likely the culprit.

‘What was meant to be a nonpartisan, state-led, voter registration event has now been tainted by Ms. Brantley’s illegal actions.’

On Monday, Brantley reportedly turned herself in to police. She was arrested on five counts of fraudulent registration and five counts of primary or enrollment violations. She was then released on a $10,000 surety bond. She is scheduled to appear in court again on February 10.

Torrington police did not respond to a request for comment, and a message left for Brantley was not returned.

Republican state Rep. Joe Canino, who represents Torrington, issued a statement following Brantley’s arrest, calling her alleged actions “shameful” and demanding better election security and oversight:

I am outraged to hear that a state employee was knowingly fabricating voter registration information without the consent of our registrants. What was meant to be a nonpartisan, state-led, voter registration event has now been tainted by Ms. Brantley’s illegal actions, which could have tainted the sanctity of Torrington elections. There is no room for election fraud in Connecticut. Whether it’s this incident in Torrington, or down in Bridgeport where individuals were stuffing ballots into a drop box during the eleventh hour before an election, the bottom line is that voter fraud is happening in Connecticut.

The Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment. Brantley’s job at the department and whether she remains employed there are both unclear.

As Rep. Canino mentioned, the allegations against Brantley in Torrington come amid Democratic voter fraud scandals that have plagued Bridgeport, the most populous city in Connecticut, for decades.

Most recently, Alfredo Castillo, a Democrat Bridgeport councilman, and Wanda Geter-Pataky — the vice chairwoman of the Bridgeport Democratic Party and a close associate of Democratic Mayor Joe Ganim, who spent seven years behind bars for political corruption — have been accused of helping a Spanish-speaking noncitizen cast an absentee ballot in 2023, as Blaze News previously reported.

Geter-Pataky has also been accused of stuffing the ballot box just before the contentious 2023 Democratic mayoral primary after surveillance cameras at city hall appeared to show her depositing stacks of ballots in the early-morning hours of September 5, 2023.

That primary election was so rife with irregularities that a judge later tossed the results and demanded that a new primary be held. Ganim prevailed in both the general election and the new primary over challenger John Gomes.

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