On Friday, June 8, U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Torresen refused to order the Maine Secretary of State to allow votes for Max Linn to be counted in the June 12 Republican primary. See this story.
Linn was told by the town clerks that he had enough valid signatures. But the Secretary of State then changed that determination. Because one circulator apparently submitted a petition with fraudulent names, the Secretary of State invalidated all the work done by that one circulator, even the valid names. As a result, Linn was 10 signatures short. He is on the Republican primary ballot for U.S. Senate, but signs will be posted at the polls saying his votes won’t be counted.
The case is Alexander v Dunlap, 1:18cv-220. There is no written order yet.
ONE Elector Nominating Forms– NO circulators
I nominate AB (address) for the office of C at the D election.
Elector Sig, name, address, date
One more part of THE Reform Amdt.
It is much more complicated than that.
The circulators take notarized petitions to the town registrars who certify that the signers are registered and enrolled in the candidate’s party. The registrars may also check the signatures (best practice). The petitions and certifications are then submitted to the SOS. Any totaling of signatures would be done by the SOS, who would have made a determination whether there were enough. Your use of “told by the town clerks” may be in a figurative sense, but is misleading.
The “Secretary of State then changed that determination” is totally in error.
The petition was challenged by the campaign of Max Linn’s opponent Eric Brakey. There were some agreed- to changes, such as duplicates not detected by the town registrars, as well as “signatures” by persons who were dead or who had not signed the petition.
There were a number of petition sheets which had significant numbers of invalid signatures, including some which the town registrars had noted as not being valid signatures. The dispute was whether these sheets should be tossed out in their entirety, in effect inferring that the circulator had fraudulently represented that they witnessed the signatures, or only the signatures determined to be invalid and quite likely fraudulent.
There were 11 such sheets, with nine different circulators. Despite the elimination of these signatures, Linn still had 2018 signatures, a surplus of 18.
The Brakey campaign then went to a state district court, and obtained a court order that the SOS should review additional signatures. You left this part out entirely.
At the second hearing, most of those newly dropped were due to the voter not being an enrolled Republican. Maine requires partisan petitions to be signed by enrolled party members. That is why it is so hard for Green and Libertarians to qualify for the ballot, a legislative candidate may have to collect 25 signatures from a pool of 45 party registrants, some whom may have moved, etc. Maine law also says that a voter may not participate in a partisan activity, such as voting in a primary or convention until 15 days after enrolling. But when signing a petition, enrollment is considered when the registration card is filled out, but the 15 days is measured when the petition is turned in. So a circulators can do the following (1) convince a voter to change his enrollment and fill out the enrollment card; (2) have the voter sign the nomination petition; (3) deliver the registration card to the town registrar; (4) turn in the completed petition.
The signature counts, so long as (2) is after (1), even by seconds; and (4) is at least 15 days after (1). This figured in the case of the only Libertarian who qualified for the ballot this year. He had the bare minimum number of signatures. One of the signers had dated his enrollment card with his birthday which was a few days later. Fortunately, the candidate/circulator had taken a picture of the enrollment form with his smart phone at the time, and had the date stamp. The SOS rejected the Democratic candidate’s lawyer argument that the date stamp could not be verified.
Because of these ;ate;y discovered unenrolled voter’s signatures, the rejected sheets became salient.
There were 19 signatures that were reinstated. The circulator had a believable recollection of collecting the signatures, and had been accompanied by a friend, In addition the signers confirmed that they had signed the petition. Moreover, the circulator remembered how many signatures she had collected since she was having a friendly contest with another circulator. At the first hearing her entire sheet had been discounted since the last five names were undated and in the same handwriting. In effect, it was determined that when the circulator had her sheet notarized, she was being truthful in that she had witnessed the signatures. She had collected 23 signatures, but four were invalid for being duplicates or not registered or not enrolled. The sheet also had five fraudulent signatures, apparently added after the sheet was notarized.
Another sheet was disqualified based on containing fraudulent signature. The Brakey campaign had argued that if one sheet collected by a circulator contained fraudulent signatures all sheets by that circulator should be disqualified. The SOS rejected that argument.
Two other circulators testified. One thought he had circulated the petition at a “shopping center” but could not recall where it was. The other testified that he had not collected on of the sheets with his name on it as circulator, but had collected another, which was accepted.
After the SOS made his revised determination that Linn did not qualify, the determination was reviewed by the district court (remember the SOS was under a court order). The district court approved the new determination, and that decision has been upheld by the Maine Supreme Court. That is likely Linn’s biggest hurdle at this point – he is trying to get a federal court to overturn a decision of state courts.
Ballot access petitions are censorship. Can you see the police state now?