Maine city and town clerks are accepting the “late” filings of signatures by Barr supporters. The August 8 deadline is considered a “soft deadline,” since the signatures are not due in the Secretary of State’s office until August 15. The clerks have used their discretionary powers to accept signatures by today.
Barr supporters say they will be submitting at least 5,676 signatures toward the 4,000 requirement.
In related news, Barr was today certified for the ballot in South Dakota and Kentucky. Check our ballot access chart for the latest, updated daily.
The people in Maine are very friendly. You have to take the signatures in to every city and town to be verified, but many clerks will do it quickly while you wait. They generally want to help you out if you treat them nicely.
Towns with smaller numbers or farther away can be mailed, if you have time. In the big cities, like Portland and it’s neighbors, the clerks are happier if you turn in the sigs to be verified a litle at a time as you collect them. This helps them to even out their workload and will get you a higher validity rate than if you turn in the whole batch at once. They actually try harder to confirm that the sigs are valid if you respect them and help them out.
You can only turn in verified signatures to the Secretary of State by the deadline. Any signatures that have not been checked are worthless. That means that signatures you gather from distant towns in small numbers are not worth getting checked and are just lost.
Still, it is easy for good circulators in Maine to get from 88% to 93% validity rates. Anyone getting less than 85% validity is not trying.
Once you have your 4000 verified signatures, you’re done. An extra 400 safety margin is more than enough.
As far as the rule for town clerks to verify sigs, it is this: The town clerks are allowed up to one week to verify signatures. The only actual deadline is the state filing deadline of August 15. But, if you file with a town clerk after August 8, then that clerk can take up to a week to verify the sigs and it will be too late. However, if they verify the sigs quicker, you can use them.. So, as long as the Barr petitioners are friendly and deliver the sigs in person, and if they didn’t hold all the sigs till the end, then there will be no problem.
One final item, since you can verify sigs as you go in Maine, it is quite possible to pay petitioners ONLY for valid sigs.
Whoa!
I see by the ballot access chart that, as of Aug 16th, Maine is now listed as “disputed” for Barr and the LP.
Are you kidding me?
Did they fail to submit signatures to the towns for verification as they collected them? Did they wait till the end to submit them ALL?
Maine is so EASY.
You just submit the Portland, South Portland, Cape Elizabeth and a few other major towns as you go. They will check them right away and you will know your validity.
For the towns that form a close ring around Portland, it’s easy to get a driver to drop off and pick up sigs. The clerks will often verify them while you wait.
Then, you turn in the already verified sigs by the deadline of August 15. Easy. You need 4000 exactly since they’re already verified. A few more to be safe.
Validity is always 85% plus for good circulators, up to 93% the many times I was there.
So, what happened?
What did the boneheads running the Maine drive do?