Several challengers, including a Democratic operative, are seeking to disqualify independent presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West from the Maine ballot over alleged signature-gathering issues.
The three challenges will put the spotlight once again on Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, in deciding whether to bar the candidates from appearing on Maine’s ballot in November.
However, the cases involving two longshot candidates carry less intrigue than the one last December in which Bellows ruled the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause barred ex-President Donald Trump from appearing on Maine’s presidential primary ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court in March reversed the decisions made here and in several other states.
The secretary of state’s office received the three challenges to West’s and Kennedy’s candidacies last Thursday. Topsham resident James Stretch, whose political experience includes working for President Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020, is challenging Kennedy’s petitions. Gray town councilor Anne Gass and Lewiston business owner Sandra Marquis are jointly challenging West’s petitions, as is Nathan Berger, a sommelier from Portland.
Bellows will hear the challenges Wednesday in Room 228 of the State House. Bellows will then rule on their within five days after the hearing concludes, and a challenger or candidate may appeal any ruling all the way up to the Supreme Judicial Court, per Maine law.
Kennedy, the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, is an environmental attorney known for his anti-vaccination views. West is a noted Black scholar and progressive activist who previously taught at Princeton and Harvard.
The latest national polls have put Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump in a neck and neck race after Harris replaced Biden atop the Democratic ticket, while Kennedy has polled close to 5 percent and West has not registered as much interest.
The challenges essentially argue the West and Kennedy campaigns each failed to follow state law and submit petitions with between 4,000 and 5,000 valid signatures from registered Maine voters. Stretch’s challenge also claims the Kennedy campaign submitted 5,853 signatures and thus exceeded the maximum number allowed under state law, while also arguing only 1,690 signatures were valid amid a litany of errors and discrepancies.
The challenges to West claim that while Bellows’ office said his campaign submitted 4,978 signatures, a “significant” number were obtained through “fraud or knowingly false statements by circulators,” such as by telling voters the petition was to support legislation meant to prevent improper financial dealings by members of Congress and tackle “corporate corruption.”
The challenge from Gass and Marquis cited other cases in Virginia and North Carolina where paid circulators for the West campaign used misleading tactics to collect signatures, with North Carolina’s elections board denying West’s Justice for All Party ballot access.
West campaign spokesperson Edwin DeJesus rejected the “baseless claims” from the Maine challengers.
“These allegations serve only to distract and divide,” DeJesus wrote in an email Monday. “We believe in the power of ordinary working people to unite and reclaim our democracy from the grip of an oligarchy dominated by both major parties.”
The Kennedy campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Kennedy has so far secured ballot access in more than a dozen states and has claimed he will appear in all 50 states once officials certify signatures, but the Maine situation is a reminder of the hurdles facing the independent candidate.
