ME: Independent Candidate for Governor Details Kafkaesque Interaction with State Ballot Access Regime, Prepares for Court Challenge

A post here the other day excerpted an article from MPBN, reporting on the difficulties encountered by Maine independent gubernatorial candidate Alex Hammer in his campaign's ballot access petition drive.  In a lengthy media release sent to TPID via email, the Hammer campaign details and documents its Kafkaesque experience interacting with the Secretary of State's office, which apparently promised more petition forms if and when they were needed, but then never responded to multiple messages explicitly asking for more forms.  According to the release, the campaign is now preparing to challenge in court the state's refusal to recognize signatures from substitute digital/electronic forms provided by the campaign.  In a further twist, the release states that the Secretary of State's Office called the police on Mr. Hammer after refusing to accept his petition forms.  Extensive excerpts from the release can be found after the jump, including Mr. Hammer's description of his interaction with the police.  From the release:

Hammer Campaign Prepares Legal Challenge to Received Secretary of State's Official Determination Regarding Hammer Campaign Ballot Petitions Submission

May 29, 2010 (Bangor, ME). For Immediate Release

The campaign has received a letter from Melissa Packard, Director of Elections for the Department of the Secretary of State Bureau of Corporations, Elections and Commissions, dated May 27, 2010, copied to Matthew Dunlap, Secretary of State, Julie Flynn, Deputy Secretary of State and Phyllis Gardiner, Assistant Attorney General.

The letter states, "This letter is to inform you that your non-party nomination petitions for the November 2, 2010 General election for the office of Governor have been declared invalid, as they did not contain the minimum number of required signatures of registered voters, certified by local registrars in accordance with the statute..."  

This morning, Alex Hammer emailed Director Packard, Deputy Flynn and Secretary of State Dunlap asking for the guidelines for appeal (a copy of this email is at the end of this release).

The campaign is working to prepare, as might be needed, to contest the Secretary of State Office's determination in court.

Over 5,900 signatures were collected by the campaign (by Alex personally). Over 3,200 of these signatures were already certified as valid by the towns (Ms. Packard's total cited in the letter is 3,209, although Hammer, when the campaign still had the original petitions before turning them in to the Secretary of State's office (the campaign retains copies) had counted the number already verified by the towns as slightly higher.

The Secretary of State's office provided written instructions to the town and city clerks and registrars not to examine enough remaining signatures that the campaign believes should have, if examined for verification, placed the campaign over the 4,000 certified valid signatures necessary for Alex's name to be placed on the ballot for Governor. 

A second email below was sent to Secretary of  State and the towns on May 24. This email documents the egregious nature of the Secretary of State's actions and the history of what occurred (Note: the link to scanned petitions in the email is taken out to protect the privacy of individuals signing the petitions from the media, although the campaign would have no problem with the media having these petitions if they are public documents that should be accessible to the media).

Email three below was sent to Secretary of State Dunlap a single day before the Secretary of State Office's determination, dated May 27, was sent to us. This email identifies beginning information in regard to Maine legal precedents as identified by a nationally leading ballot access authority.

This information was ignored by the Secretary of State and not responded to.

Excerpt one below details, in a recent Op-Ed submission, the police being called on me in regard to my visit to the Secretary of State's office to turn in these signatures. 

Email 4 below details my informing Secretary of State Dunlap that "Attorney General Mills has a potential specific conflict of interest" in regard to a letter as a candidate that I had written to the AG involving potential windpower conflict of interest issues in Maine, after the Secretary of State wrote to me that "We are exploring with the Attorney General's office the request you have made of several of the town's clerks." Phyllis Gardiner, who Ms. Packard copied on the Secretary of State's determination of my petitions has had direct communication with me in regard to these raised windpower issues by me to the AG's office (I do not know whether the Secretary of State's office is aware of my communications with Ms. Gardner in regard to my concerns regarding the windpower issues) and thus would have the same potential specific conflict of interest.

Secretary of State Dunlap's email about the Attorney General's office also states "Once we have clarification under the law from the Attorney General's office, we will have further communication." but no such communication was ever received by the campaign and thus we have no idea what input, if any, the Attorney General's office may had in regard to clarifying these issues.

Ms. Packard's letter also states that "we have determined that you filed 185 petitions" but the correct number is approximately 253 (the Secretary of State's office did not wish to provide a receipt in regard to the number of pages turned in).

This is a recent news report from MPBN. Link: Independent Gubernatorial Hopeful in Battle to Gain Ballot Status

The email correspondence referenced above was provided with the release, but has not been published here.  Below you will find the description of the incident involving the police included with the release:

Excerpt 1:
" Not yet reported (but known by the Maine media) in my ballot efforts (I've collected over 5,900 signatures to have my name on the ballot for Governor) is that the Secretary of State's office appears to have called the police on me after I simply very politely declined to take back a portion of the submitted petitions which the Secretary of State's office wrongly wished to not accept (or to even review to consider to accept)...

I found out that the police had been called when I was back in Bangor when I received a call at home from a Capitol police officer. He wanted to know if I had been in the building (where the Secretary of State's election division resides) today. I explained that yes I had been there to turn in my signatures to the Secretary of State's office as is required. (I'd also had a friend accompany me). The officer asked if I'd been agitated. I explained that I hadn't and that, again, I simply politely declined to take back a portion of the signatures I was submitting, explaining to the officer briefly why.

As far as I know, the Secretary of State's office is the only one that could report to the police that I was in the building (no one else I can think of in Augusta would know this) and be able to provide my phone number to them.

I feel that them apparently doing this, calling the police on me, is an egregious and serious matter, and frankly a bit scary as well. We do not live in a police state and it was extraordinarily wrong for the police to be called.

My interviewer (MPBN) told me that the Secretary of State, when questioned about this, made reference to Security routinely being in the building, but not only did I not see any Security personnel during my visit but someone must have given the police my phone number for the officer to call me. This may have been done later on as I did not receive the phone call (and there was no phone message on my answering machine) until I was back in Bangor after traveling back from Augusta.

The same interviewer later said that the Secretary of State had denied that anyone from his office called the police.

This matter should be investigated."