Petitions for tax cap vote rejected

AUGUSTA – Maine election officials said Monday that supporters of a property tax cap initiative failed to submit enough valid signatures to put the measure on the November ballot.

“This is not a decision we’ve [made] lightly,” Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky said, adding that the matter had been reviewed in depth by the state Attorney General’s Office.

Topsham activist Carol Palesky’s initiative sought to cap property taxes at 1 percent of assessed value.

Palesky, whose Maine Taxpayers Action Network failed in attempts in 1996 and 1998 to get tax cap proposals on the ballot, said she will appeal Gwadosky’s ruling within the five days allowed by law.

“That bureaucrat in there ought to be tarred and feathered,” Palesky said as she stood outside the room where Gwadosky announced his decision. “He abused his power.”

Palesky, who served a jail sentence for submitting fraudulent signatures in one of her earlier campaigns, needed to provide valid signatures of at least 42,101 Maine voters in order to bring her latest proposal to a statewide vote. Petitions submitted by MTAN included 53,795 signatures.

But 8,544 signatures were ruled invalid because municipal registrars did not certify them as belonging to local voters. Another 2,321 signatures were found to be duplicates.

Hundreds of others were thrown out for technical problems, omissions and other errors, leaving Palesky 2,812 signatures short of the minimum.

A number of the signatures were not counted because officials could not determine that a petition circulator identified as James H. Powell was a Maine resident, as required by the state constitution, Gwadosky said.

A nine-page affidavit distributed by Gwadosky details an investigation into the residency status of Powell. A probe that brought investigator Michael Pulire into contact with witnesses from Maine to California, Arizona and Washington state failed to locate Powell.

The investigation also could not determine whether Powell is a citizen of the United States, let alone Maine, Gwadosky said.

“The tough nut to crack now is how to find the individual,” said Gwadosky.

Palesky said Powell established residency in Scarborough by registering to vote there in October 2000. She acknowledged she did not know Powell and did not know where to find him, but said she was also unfamiliar with other circulators who worked for her campaign.

State election officials said the residency requirements for petition circulators go beyond registering to vote in a Maine town.

The tax cap petitions were filed with the state in October. If a sufficient number of signatures had been validated, the measure would have been sent to the Legislature.

Lawmakers could then have passed the proposal, sent it to voters, or sent it to voters with a competing question.

Activists for other referendum campaigns dealing with medical marijuana use, video gambling, benefits for unmarried couples and snack taxes did not submit petitions by last week’s deadline to get their proposals on the fall ballot.