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Republican Lt. Gov. candidate Anne Brensley is speaking out after reportedly falling victim to fraud by a political consultant she hired to collect ballot signatures for her campaign.
Brensley, of Wayland, says she is going to keep on fighting to make the ballot while she takes legal action against Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office and considers a civil suit against consultant Joe Bronske.
“My campaign isn’t over. I’m just deciding what to do at this moment in time. There is no way I’m going to allow this to continue to happen in Massachusetts. So, if I need to run on this issue of voter integrity, then I plan on running on that issue because I’m seeing the massive flaw in it,” Brensley told the Herald over the phone.
“But, it also makes me nervous for any upcoming election because how do we know the mail-in ballots aren’t being abused the same way?” Brensley said. “The system will continue to go this way if I don’t force the DA to take action and force the Secretary of State to take action,” she said.
The situation marks a major turn of events in the Republican primary election, with Brensley failing to collect the required amount of signatures just weeks after a landslide victory at the MassGOP convention to earn the party endorsement. Brensley’s campaign is now taking legal action, hitting Galvin’s office with a lawsuit seeking additional time to replace the fraudulent signatures and considering a lawsuit against consultant Joe Bronske.
Brensley’s campaign calls Bronske a “Republican insider” who they say participated in “the largest electoral fraud scandal” in state history.
Brensley also shared several news stories and other documents with the Herald which she says shows he has conducted a pattern of similar fraud throughout the country.
The Herald reached out to Bronske when this story broke earlier this month and he has yet to respond.
Brensley’s team says that based on several recommendations to hire him, they wound up tasking Bronske with collecting signatures primarily on the South Shore and Metro South areas, including Weymouth, Hanover, Braintree, Rockland and Easton, sharing one of the final updates Bronske gave the campaign.
“We are officially at 6,203 signatures for Anne Brensley! I project we are going to be turning in a grand total of 7,000 new signatures,” Bronske told the campaign in an April 30 email update. “I also received a deposit for $5,000.00 yesterday bringing the total to $15,000.00 received by the campaign so far. We are outstanding with $15,000.00 as of today. With 7,000 signatures you are looking at approximately $35,000.00 in a grand total.”
Brensley’s campaign tells the Herald that Bronske sent the $15,000 he collected back after the fraud concerns were raised. The campaign says entire batches of signatures collected by Bronske were rejected after three towns contacted the Secretary of State’s Office with concerns of forgery. In total, the campaign collected a total of 7,500 legitimate signatures, 2,500 short of the state requirement.
“I’m going after the Secretary of State because I hold them responsible for not having a system in place to flag fraudsters and avoid this. It is literally their job, according to Massachusetts law, to create a system where there is voter integrity, where it is secured,” Brensley added. “We are at least going to report this guy (Bronske) so no one else hires him.”
But the Secretary of State’s Office tells the Herald that it does not have the authority to grant candidates additional time to collect the signatures, saying that deadlines for signatures in state elections are set by Massachusetts law.
The deadline for town clerks to submit certified signatures is June 2, giving individual towns less than a month to collect and certify any new signatures sent in by Brensley’s or other affected campaigns and access the ballot. The original deadline to submit signatures to town clerks offices was May 5.
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