Control of Maine chamber hinges on Hall-Fossel race

AUGUSTA – The words “anyone else” were marked on one ballot. And there were write-in votes for Bob Dole and Bart Simpson.

That’s a sampling of the curious commentary a state Senate committee encountered Monday as it scrutinized 44 disputed ballots in a race that will determine whether the Democrats can hang on to their tentative one-vote edge in the 35-member chamber for the next two years.

The Committee on the Senatorial Vote will recommend to the full Senate, which has the constitutional authority to seat its own members, on how the ballots should be tallied.

The committee took up the disputed District 16 election between Democrat Christopher Hall of Bristol and Republican Leslie Fossel of Alna after a postelection recount failed to confirm a winner.

Hall ended election night with a two-vote edge over Fossel. After a recount, Hall led by nine votes, leaving 44 ballots in dispute. Hall has been provisionally seated in the Senate, giving the Democrats an 18-17 edge.

Seven senators on the review committee pored over photocopies of the disputed ballots one by one Monday, voting each time on whether to credit the ballot for Hall or Fossel or neither.

On some ballots, voters had put marks inside check boxes for both competing candidates. Scribbles and lines appeared on some ballots. On at least one ballot, marks appeared after the candidates’ names rather than in the appropriate boxes.

Committee members briefly discussed each of the ballots before deciding how the votes in the critical election should be interpreted.

The attorney for Fossel urged committee members before their review to look beyond the stray marks and consider voter intent when looking at the ballots. Stephen Lechner also said it was up to the committee to ensure the election is fair.

“The people of the state of Maine are watching what we do today,” Lechner said.

Jonathan Hull, the Democratic candidate’s attorney, said the integrity of the election was more important than who actually wins the election.

But the final outcome has profound political implications for the two-year legislative session that is just getting under way.

If the Senate remains under Democratic control, it will give both Houses of the Legislature Democratic majorities. With Democrat John Baldacci beginning a four-year term as governor, his party would be in a position to control the State House agenda with muscle it has not had since the mid-1980s.

Before the ballot review got under way, the committee turned down Republican proposals to make the ballots available for public inspection and to ask for the intervention of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in the process. Both proposals were turned down by 4-3 party-line votes.

The committee was given a Friday deadline to make a recommendation to the full Senate on which candidate should be seated.