On July 28, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court unanimously removed Herb Hoffman from the November ballot. He is an independent candidate for U.S. Senate. Maine will now be one of eight states with no one on the ballot for U.S. Senate except for the Republican and Democratic nominees.
Hoffman needed 4,000 signatures. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that all the signatures on sheets circulated by Hoffman himself should be invalidated, leaving him with only 3,929 valid signatures. It was known that three particular signers had signed the petitions (that were witnessed by Hoffman himself) while he was not actually watching the signature-gathering process. The controversy was whether to delete just those three signatures, or whether to invalidate all three entire sheets. The decision does not discuss the philosophy behind the law; it just says that since his statement that he had witnessed all the signatures gathered on those sheets was false, therefore none of his work should be counted. Here is the opinion.
All I can say is:
American Democracy — one more candidate than communism.
Well, I am donating to the GOP campaign in Maine then, just to spite the Democrats (the ones who brought suit).
Herb Hoffman should start a write-in campaign.
Moral of story – Don’t cut it so fine… I don’t know how many raw sigs were turned in, but I’d doubt that there was anything close to the 50% margin I usually see suggested (and have had reccommended to me by Town Clerks when I’ve been running) If he’d had a bigger margin, A: The loss of a few signatures wouldn’t have mattered, and B: He probably wouldn’t have been challenged in the first place…
It was only the few signatures that made him a vulnerable target – if he’d submitted say 5,000 valid sigs, then the opposition would probably have decided it would be a waste of effort to challenge…
BTW, sort of problem can hit the “big guys” as well – here in Mass. we just had the “Party-annointed” US Senate candidate fail to make his primary ballot by something like 60 signatures… According to the FEC Jim Ogonowski spent something around $30K on “campaign consultants” and $2K on petitioning… He has shut down his campaign, and his former long-shot competition will be the R candidate against Kerry… IMHO this is a good thing for the LPMA, as it means more likely votes for OUR US Senate candidate (Robert Underwood), and improves our shot at getting the 3% plus needed to gain “Major Party” status… (Though that is a mixed blessing – ballot access is FAR worse in Mass. for a small “Major Party” than it is for a “Political Designation” – petition requirements go up, and the universe of eligible signers shrinks about 50%)
ART
LPMA Operations Facilitator
Speaking for myself