Somerset County jail vote heads for recount Residents approved $30M facility by 28 ballots

SKOWHEGAN – At 2 p.m. Wednesday – 2 1/2 hours before the deadline – Skowhegan lawyer John Youney delivered a petition to the Somerset County commissioners containing 195 certified signatures of voters who demanded a recount of the Nov. 8 jail referendum vote.

Youney said he took on the recount move after he received at least 100 phone calls from jail construction opponents.

“It’s the cost. It’s too big,” Youney said Wednesday afternoon.

Voters in the county’s 33 towns approved the $30 million jail construction by 28 votes. More than 15,000 votes were cast.

“Everyone agrees that we need a new jail, but we don’t need a Taj Mahal,” Youney said Wednesday. “When we have an average of 77 inmates, why are we building a 173-bed facility?”

Youney said a jail that size would require 38 new employees.

“That, being roughly conservative, would cost $1.52 million a year,” he said. “We would have to board 42 inmates a day from other jails just to make up the wages.”

He also said that 28 votes are clearly not a mandate and the commissioners should take a second look at the project.

Youney said the petition drive began last Thursday and the completed petition contained 195 signatures, certified by town clerks in Hartland, Skowhegan, Madison and Norridgewock.

State law required a petition with at least 100 certified signatures to be delivered before 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Since the jail referendum was a county referendum, the county will act as the secretary of state in the recount, Julie Flynn of the Division of Elections explained.

No details of the recount procedure or where it will be conducted have been released.

“I think the county has the ability to do a recount fairly,” Youney said, “but there will be the perception of unfairness. The law is a bad law. The county should not be doing its own counting.”

Youney said he was also concerned about “after-the-fact ballot tampering.” He said that many communities have not “locked down” their ballots since the Nov. 8 vote.

Reached by telephone Wednesday afternoon, however, several town clerks said they had put their ballots in safes or vaults immediately following the counting and they had remained there ever since.

Youney said he expected Maine State Police troopers to pick up the ballots from each Somerset County town today.