On August 21, the Maine Libertarian Party chose Ray Lafrance to be an Androscoggin County Commissioner, to replace Zachery Maher. Because Maher was a Libertarian, the law permitted the Libertarian Party to choose his replacement. See this story.
Maher had switched to the Libertarian Party on September 7, 2017. He had been elected in 2016 to a four-year term. This seat will now have a special election in November 2018, and Lafrance will be on the ballot for the remaining two years as the Libertarian nominee.
The provision for replacement is in the Androscoggin County Charter. The replacement is made by a caucus of party members in the district of the vacating member. There is specific language that the caucus must be run according to party rules (or established parliamentary rules). I would interpret the charter as requiring participation by all registered voters of the party, rather than some party committee. Androscoggin County has 1081 enrolled Libertarians, so this could mean around 150 members in the district (1 of 7).
In the case of an unenrolled official, the status of being unenrolled is as the time of the primary election at which he was elected. So an official can not take replacement rights from a party by becoming unenrolled.
I suspect that the authors of the charter never anticipated someone would switch parties after election, let alone to one of /those/ parties.
Candidate/incumbent replacement lists.
@Demo Rep,
Why?
TO NOT have the gangster machinations regarding replacements of candidates and incumbents (high cost low turnout special elections for the latter).