In late September, the State Elections Enforcement Commission began an investigation into the matter, on the referral of Denise Merrill, the secretary of state.

The commission has issued subpoenas for elections records related to absentee ballots, as well as surveillance videos and visitor logs from P.T. Barnum and Harborview Towers.

“There is a reason that we have absentee ballots, and that has been abused over and over again,” Senator Moore said in an interview. “This is not about Marilyn Moore. This is about an opportunity to break down a system that has kept people disenfranchised for a very long time.”

The matter has also been taken up in Bridgeport Superior Court, as a judge is hearing testimony on a lawsuit claiming a number of instances of voter fraud. The lawsuit, brought by two grass-roots groups, Bridgeport Generation Now Votes and PT Partners, seeks to invalidate the primary results and schedule a new primary.

The two groups said they found “patterns of behavior that show repeated violations of the laws regarding the absentee ballot process.”

One of those accused was Beverly Cox, a retired nursing assistant who lives in Harborview Towers and has for many years distributed absentee ballots to her neighbors.

The lawsuit accused her of helping at least two residents fill in applications for absentee ballots, and then instructing them to vote for particular candidates.