Background
On March 24, 2026, the Town of Clifton held a municipal election for a one-year Select Board seat between candidates Steve Armenia and Cynthia Grant. Before the election, a family member of two voters applied for absentee ballots on their behalf under Maine’s statute permitting immediate family members to do so. That family member was himself a candidate on the same ballot for a separate, three-year Select Board seat. He signed the applications on the wrong line and later personally returned the completed ballots to the Town Clerk on Election Day. The Clerk accepted the ballots but, due to a clerical error, they were not counted in the initial tally, which showed Grant winning 114–113.
When the Clerk discovered the error the following morning, the Town moved to count the two ballots. A member of the public, Jeffery F. Niles Jr., challenged both ballots. The SJC had previously dismissed an earlier challenge for failure to file an adequate affidavit. Niles then submitted a new, signed affidavit raising three grounds: (1) the applications were improperly submitted by a candidate, in violation of 21-A M.R.S. § 753-B(2)(E); (2) the applications lacked the required signature under § 753-A(3)(A)(3); and (3) the return envelopes omitted the voters’ street addresses as required by § 762(1). When counted, both ballots were cast for Armenia, flipping the result to 115–114 in his favor and triggering the court’s original jurisdiction to resolve the dispute.
The Town, Niles, and Grant stipulated to the facts and submitted legal memoranda, waiving oral argument. Armenia did not participate. A four-justice majority ordered the ballots counted; three justices, including the Chief Justice, filed a statement of nonconcurrence.
The Court’s Holding
The majority held that all three grounds for challenge failed. On the primary ground — that a candidate applied for the ballots — the court construed 21-A M.R.S. § 673(1)(A)(5) according to its plain text: a ballot may be challenged on the ground that the voter “did not properly apply for an absentee ballot.” Because every enumerated basis for challenge under § 673(1)(A) concerns conduct by the voter, not a third party, an improper act by a family member or candidate acting as applicant cannot be imputed to the voter to defeat the ballot. The majority also found that even setting aside the voter-conduct limitation, the candidate’s act of applying for the ballots was not itself prohibited — § 753-B(2)(E) bars clerks from issuing ballots to candidates, and § 791(3)(B) bars candidates from delivering, receiving, or assisting with completed ballots, but neither statute prohibits a candidate-family-member from submitting an application on a voter’s behalf.
On the signature ground, the court found that the family member did sign the applications — albeit on the wrong line — and the statutory requirement that the application “contain” the signature was therefore satisfied. The court also noted that Niles appeared to concede this point. On the return-envelope address ground, the court declined to reach the merits because Niles had not included this basis in his sworn affidavit as required by § 673(1), and it further observed that an address defect on a return envelope is not among the enumerated grounds for challenging a ballot under § 673(1)(A).
The majority grounded its statutory analysis in the principle that Maine election law distinguishes between acts of voters and acts of election officials or third parties, and that ballots should not be invalidated by technical defects caused by others when the voter acted in good faith. The court accordingly ordered both ballots counted and directed the Town to certify the result with those ballots included.
Key Takeaways
- Under 21-A M.R.S. § 673(1)(A), absentee ballots may be challenged only on grounds that the voter acted improperly — misconduct by a third-party applicant or deliverer cannot, standing alone, invalidate the ballot under the majority’s reading.
- Maine law does not prohibit a candidate who is an immediate family member from applying for an absentee ballot on a voter’s behalf; the statutory restrictions on candidates concern receiving, delivering, assisting with, or witnessing completed ballots, not the filing of applications.
- A challenger’s affidavit must contain every ground asserted — the court will not reach arguments raised only in a legal memorandum that were not sworn to in the affidavit required by § 673(1).
- A 4–3 split on the court signals genuine statutory ambiguity; the dissenting justices read the same statutes to require invalidation and urged the Legislature to clarify the grounds on which absentee ballots may be challenged.
Why It Matters
The decision resolves a one-vote municipal election and, more broadly, clarifies the scope of Maine’s absentee-ballot challenge statute. By holding that § 673(1)(A) limits challenges to voter misconduct, the majority reinforces Maine’s longstanding policy against disenfranchising voters for procedural errors committed by election officials or third parties — a principle with implications for any case where an absentee ballot is processed improperly by someone other than the voter.
The sharp dissent, joined by three justices including the Chief Justice, underscores that the outcome is not settled law in any practical sense. The dissenters argued that because the family member acted expressly “for the voter” and “on the voter’s behalf” under § 753-A(3), his statutory violations were properly attributed to the voters, and that counting ballots tainted by a candidate’s prohibited involvement undermines the anti-fraud purposes behind the absentee-ballot statutes. Election administrators, candidates, and municipal clerks across Maine should take note: the Legislature may well respond with clarifying legislation, and until it does, the line between permissible family-member assistance and conduct that can ground a ballot challenge remains contested.