AUGUSTA — Members of Ross Perot’s Reform Party filed suit against the state of Maine Thursday claiming the party was wrongfully denied official recognition by Secretary of State Bill Diamond.

In an action brought at the U.S. District Court in Portland, the Reform Party members claimed their constitutional rights were violated on Jan. 4 when Diamond rejected nearly 10,000 of about 35,000 petition signatures as invalid.

The Reform Party had collected about 10,000 signatures more than the amount required by the state. Diamond ultimately concluded that the party was short by 515 signatures in its efforts to become a recognized party.

Steve Bost, who heads the Reform Party’s New England division, said the party already has identified as valid nearly 800 signatures that were rejected by local election officials in several Maine communities such as Saco, Bangor, Brunswick, Old Town, Westbrook and Portland. All six communities were named in the party’s lawsuit.

The Maine Sunday Telegram identified numerous errors in its own independent review of the party’s petition process in nine towns. The paper’s staff documented more than 300 signatures rejected by town registrars that should have been valid.

Bost maintains that Diamond, as the chief election official in Maine, should be able to review any signatures proved to be valid and certify them to allow the Reform Party to achieve its official recognition.

Diamond said Thursday that addressing errors made by local officials exceeds the limits of his authority. Bost disagreed.

“We’re contending that he does have the authority,” Bost said. “He is the chief elections officer of the state. If he does not have jurisdiction, it’s very unclear who in fact does. What we’re hoping is that the court finds Diamond does have jurisdiction.”

Bost and the other plaintiffs in the case also are maintaining that Maine’s Dec. 14 petition-filing deadline is unreasonably early. Diamond said Maine Attorney General Andrew Ketterer believes that the Dec. 14 deadline cannot be breached.

“So one of the biggest tests of this law is whether the law is constitutional,” Diamond said. “If it is as we believe it is, then that deadline was there and there’s nothing we can do about it. If the court finds it to be unconstitutional for whatever reason, then I expect the court will say we can breach it. So we would redo what was done at the local level, even though it was done after-the-fact.”

Bost and Diamond are also at odds over the Reform Party’s claim that it ought to be entitled to recognition on the basis that Perot received 30.4 percent of the state’s vote in the 1992 presidential election. Diamond countered that Maine law clearly states the party must obtain an additional 5 percent of the vote in the most recent gubernatorial election.

“We maintain that we are able to establish a political party in Maine based on Perot’s having achieved 30.4 percent of the vote in Maine in 1992,” Bost said. “State law is very vague in that area. The secretary of state has interpreted the statute one way and we have the other.”

The Reform Party also has alleged there were instances in which local registrars sought to influence the political party preference of voters seeking to enroll in the Reform Party.

Diamond said he didn’t believe any of the registrars did anything wrong intentionally. He conceded mistakes probably occurred, but suggested that the Reform Party also could lose signatures if the entire petition process is held up to scrutiny.

“There’s no question that people make mistakes, everybody does,” he said. “But in a recount of those signatures, like any recount, you’re going to find mistakes on both sides. So if they’re going to look for mistakes that cost them signatures, they should also be looking for mistakes that gave them signatures.”

Both Bost and Diamond were confident they would prevail in the legal challenge that could be decided in Portland as early as next month.