KENNEBUNK – In a recent conversation, Town Clerk Merton Brown talked about how he handled challenges to petitions calling for the recall of Regional School Unit 21 director Tim Stentiford.
Kennebunk Town Clerk Merton Brown, shown on election night 2020, recently discussed some of the things he looks for when petition signatures are challenged. Gregory Rec photo/Press Herald
The petition contained 697 signatures, and on the original certification, Brown determined 29 of them were invalid, leaving 668 – three above the number needed to move forward with a recall election. After examining challenges, Brown determined three additional signatures were invalid because, he said, they appeared to be made by someone else, leaving 665 valid signatures – which is the threshold petitioners needed to advance to a recall election.
The 665 number is 10 percent of those in Kennebunk who cast ballots in the last gubernatorial election. A recall election is set for March 29.
Between the first certification and the challenges, altogether about nine people were part of the counting and examination process, said Brown. From the first certification, up to and including the challenges, a total of 245 hours were invested in the process by Brown and the others.
He said there were challenges by about eight people.
“The ones we did not address were (challenges filed) on the grounds of false affidavit and the computation of allowing signatures on Dec. 31,” said Brown. He said the Kennebunk charter speaks only to signatures when it comes to challenges.
“The only thing anyone could challenge was signatures, not content or computation of days,” said Brown.
He quoted section 7. 03 of the Kennebunk Town Charter which states, “If the petition shall be certified to be sufficient by the Town Clerk and the registrar of voters, the Town Clerk shall allow 5 days for the filing of legal challenges to the signatures on the petition.”
He explained the several resources available and the process to look at signatures in question.
“We call up the name into the central voter registration system,” said Brown. He said he can then look at a street address and the name, look at all of the people with the same last name, then all with the same first names. Then he moves on to voter registration cards – there are 10,300 original paper cards on file – examines them, and then does so again to determine if the name in question has been misfiled, and so on.
He said there were three signatures challenged because they appeared to have been made by the person above them or below them on the petition papers.
“There was no question the signatures were not made,” by the individual whose name appeared on the petition paper, said Brown.
He said he will continue to investigate a signature because a challenger questioned the individual’s residency.
For the signatures in question, Brown and others who examined them looked at slants in the signature, any letters that matched, and similar features. He noted that it was complicated somewhat by voter registration cards because in some cases the cards are 5 to 24 years old – and he noted that people’s signatures change over time. He said he took into consideration that people were signing, “outside, on a wobbly card table in winter, with gloves on,” and that some were probably in a hurry.
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