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home > radio > maine news > news story Maine NewsHoffman Decision Raises New Questions About Petition Drives
One day after the Maine Supreme Court forced independent U.S. Senate candidate Herbert Hoffman off the fall ballot, aftershocks are being felt at the Secretary of State's Office where the phone is ringing off the hook. Elections officials say callers are raising questions about other candidates' petitions and whether their signatures were legally obtained. Although the deadline for challenges has passed, election officials and party activists predict the high court's ruling could spark dozens of signature-gathering lawsuits. Years before Matthew Dunlap ever had any inclination to become Maine's top elections official, he says he knew how the game was played when it came to gathering signatures for a political candidate: "I've seen it. Everybody's seen it. You go to a meeting, and there's the petition on the table, you know. You walk in and you sign the petition." As secretary of state, Dunlap was forced to defend his interpretation of Maine's law governing candidates' petitions from challenges lodged by the leaders of his own Maine Democratic Party. After independent U.S. Senate candidate Herbert Hoffman acknowledged he was not present when three people signed one of his nominating petitions, Dunlap gave him the benefit of the doubt. He said the three signatures should be removed, but he said Maine law allowed the petition itself to remain valid. Democratic leaders said Dunlap's solution did not go far enough. They insisted all three petitions should be tossed out, knowing that would drop Hoffman below the number needed to qualify for the fall ballot and eliminate the progressive candidate's ability to draw potential votes away from the party's nominee, Congressman Tom Allen. This week the Maine Supreme Judicial Court sided with the Democrats, and Dunlap says Maine politics may never be the same. In fact, his office is already hearing from people who would like to check other candidate's petitions, even though the deadline for signature challenges has already expired. Dunlap explains "We have had a few requests - mostly out of curiosity if anything - and I think, you know, probably we ought to take a look at those ourselves and try to get a handle on what types of challenges we could expect ourselves." If Dunlap is trying to prepare for what the implications of the court's ruling could be for the 2010 election cycle, party activists think they already know the answer. David Bright, of Dixmont, is a Democrat who recently got bounced off the party's executive committee for supporting Hoffman. He says, "This is now a new tool in the monkey wrench toolbox." He says that using the court's rationale, any petition will be able to be invalidated if the challenger can find one person who says they don't know if the circulator was present when they signed the document. Dunlap says current practices for Democrats include many instances of people simply walking into a meeting or party caucus and signing any number of petitions that are spread out on a table or tacked to the wall. The circulator may be at the table or engaged in a work group session elsewhere in the room. Dunlap explains, "It speaks directly to that scenario where you have a table with petitions on it, and, I think that, you know, because of this court ruling people have to be much more thoughtful about how they circulate petitions. They are now much more responsible for them than they were before yesterday." During the February caucuses when there were so many Democrats turning out for presidential candidates Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, Bright says he's certain there were instances in which no one circulator could claim to have personally witnessed every signature -- including those for Tom Allen. Bright comments, "It is highly likely that great numbers of signatures of these major candidates were collected under the exact same circumstances as the Democrats alleged was improper." Dan Billings, a Waterville attorney and Republican activist, says Bright's understanding of the signature-gathering process for both parties is correct. He says that this year, however, Hoffman was the reason that Democrats saw things differently: "The rules were applied to him because the Democrats decided to challenge him. But it's not like what he did was that unusual or that different from the practice by a number of candidates and supporters of candidates." Dunlap says his office will be working with the Maine Legislature next year to make any necessary clarifications in the signature-gathering law that may be deemed appropriate.
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