Maine Secretary of State rejects citizen challenges to West presidential ballot eligibility

Third party presidential candidate Cornel West. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

While Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows determined that some signatures for independent presidential candidate Cornel West were gathered fraudulently, Bellows concluded that West still submitted a sufficient number of valid signatures to appear on Maine’s presidential ballot.

In a ruling dated Aug. 20, Bellows denied two challenges to West’s candidate petition brought by three citizens, the consolidated hearing over which the secretary served as presiding officer last Wednesday.

West — a well known Black scholar and former professor at Harvard and Princeton universities — is running with Melina Abdullah, who is a university professor and Black Lives Matter activist.

Anne Gass of Gray and Sandra Marquis of Lewiston argued West’s petition was invalid because a circulator procured signatures through false statements, as well as alleged the petition contained too few valid signatures because of inaccurate or incomplete information on the part of circulators, notaries and petition signers.

A separate challenge filed by Nathan Berger of Portland also similarly argued West’s petition had too few valid signatures because of illegible or inaccurate information. However, Berger’s challenge was distinct in also alleging at the same time that West’s campaign submitted more signatures than the state’s allowable limit for such petitions.

Bellows rejected both of the challenges, though found some truth to fraudulent signature gathering and invalid signatures. Ultimately, Bellows concluded, West’s candidate petition contained the number of valid signatures he needed to get on Maine’s presidential ballot.

After reviewing the evidence presented by the challengers, Bellows invalidated 258 additional signatures.

Her office had initially determined the petition contained 4,978 signatures. Following adjudication of these challenges, the petition has 4,720 valid signatures, which still meets the requirements for ballot access. Maine law requires at least 4,000 signatures from voters, but no more than 5,000 to be on the general election ballot as a presidential candidate.

“To find more signatures invalid on the basis of the ministerial concerns detailed by the challengers would be to establish new legal precedents not found in Maine law that would restrict the constitutional rights of voters in the petition process,” Bellows wrote in her decision. “The evidence presented by the challengers of fraud perpetrated by one signature collector is more troubling. Make no mistake, fraud has no place in our elections process. However, the challengers did not demonstrate in a clear or convincing way that other circulators, notaries or most importantly, voters engaged in fraud.”

The challengers or candidate can appeal Bellows’ decision to the Superior Court, whose decision can then also be appealed to the Law Court. This challenge and subsequent appeal process is what occurred in a separate case earlier this year regarding former President Donald Trump’s primary election eligibility.

Bellows’ rejection of the challenges to West’s ballot access comes after a separate challenge to independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was withdrawn without explanation .

Clear Choice Action, a Democrat-aligned political action committee, has been behind similar challenges to both West and Kennedy’s ballot eligibility in multiple states . The group previously told the Portland Press Herald that it planned to file challenges in Maine, though Gass, Marquis and Berger have not disclosed ties to any organizational effort.

Findings of fraud

During the hearing for the challenges on Aug. 14, three witnesses testified that a signature collector outside of supermarkets in Maine asked them to sign a petition to stop politicians from being able to trade stocks and did not mention that the petition was related to West.

The witnesses each said they only found out they’d signed a petition to get West on the ballot when the law firm representing Gass and Marquis contacted them.

Counsel for Gass and Marquis specifically presented evidence that one circulator, Patrick Powers, used deception to obtain the signatures of at least these three witnesses, including by using the back sides of petition forms as the witnesses also testified to.

“Upon review of the proceedings and the evidence before me, I conclude that some signatures were gathered fraudulently, and I reject the petition forms that contain those signatures,” Bellows wrote in her decision. “However, the bad actions of one should not impugn the valid First Amendment rights of the many.”

Gass and Marquis did not present evidence that any circulators other than Powers engaged in fraud or deception when collecting signatures, nor that the West campaign directed fraudulent signature gathering, Bellows concluded. “To the contrary,” Bellows wrote, “the evidence indicated that campaign organizers had little involvement in the circulation of their petitions in Maine.”

During the hearing, representatives of West’s campaign testified that the campaign is a grassroots effort, the petitioning process is decentralized and there is no one on the ground in Maine who oversees the signature gathering process, which they explained is done by volunteers who receive minimal training and otherwise rely on publicly available training materials.

Absent evidence of fraud conducted by other signature gatherers, Bellows invalidated the signatures on Powers’ petition sheets but not signatures on other collectors’ sheets, as “voters who signed these petitions must be assumed to have done so based on their genuine support for the presidential candidacy of Dr. West,” Bellows wrote. “It would be unfair to those supporters to disqualify their signatures because of misconduct by an individual that had nothing to do with their decision to sign the petition.”

Along with accusations of fraud, Gass and Marquis presented evidence that some of the signature collectors were paid by an entity other than West’s campaign. However, Bellows similarly concluded that Maine election law doesn’t require nor permit her “to deny the constitutional rights of the voters signing the petitions sincerely on the basis of the actions of a few who may have acted in bad faith,” Bellows wrote.

Signature irregularities

Gass and Marquis also alleged some signatures did not meet statutory requirements to be valid because of inaccurate or incomplete information on the part of circulators, notaries and petition signers. These allegations overlapped with some of the accusations in Berger’s challenge as well.

Bellows concluded most of these alleged irregularities — such as incomplete dates or use of nicknames — did not invalidate their corresponding signatures. While few in comparison, Bellows sided with the challengers in some of the instances where they claimed petition signatures were invalid — such as duplicate signatures and an inability to confirm registration status of the signer.

Ultimately, Bellows found that the petition had the number of valid signatures West needed to qualify for the ballot.

“While other states across the country may direct election officials to exclude voters from duly participating in our elections processes on the basis of scrivener’s quibbles, Maine does not,” Bellows wrote. “Our election laws are grounded in encouraging full and fair voter participation, and the registrars acted appropriately in certifying signatures for voters that they could verify regardless of whether a voter signed with a nickname or dated the petition with the day and month only.”

Signature cap

Berger’s challenge was distinct in also alleging West’s campaign submitted more signatures than the state’s allowable limit for such petitions.

Berger claimed West’s campaign submitted 5,983 signatures, 983 above the current maximum under state law.

After reviewing the state statute, legislative intent and the provision of law governing when her office must accept a candidate petition for filing, Bellows found that the maximum does not refer to the number of “raw” signatures collected by the candidate, which Berger’s challenge hinged on.

Rather, the statute provides minimums and maximums for the numbers of “voters” that must sign a petition for it to be valid.

“The relevant number for determining whether the petition exceeded the statutory maximum is the same as the number for determining whether it fell below the minimum: the number of signatures determined to be valid by registrars and the Elections Division,” Bellows wrote.

If Berger’s challenge had been successful, it would have been the first time in Maine history that a candidate was disqualified for demonstrating too much public support for their candidacy, based on records available to the Secretary of State. Maine has had a statutory maximum for the number of signatures permitted petitions since 1977.

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