Maine Director of Elections Heidi Peckham issued a recommendation that the Secretary of State (SoS) allow David Corbett to run as a Republican for York Sheriff despite challenges against his candidacy, while admitting that he falsely attested to his qualifications.
The recommendation obtained by the Maine Wire comes after Independent Sheriff Candidate Brian Pellerin and York County Republican Chair Heidi Sampson challenged Corbett’s qualifications to run for sheriff.
On Friday, the SOS office held an hours-long hearing presided over by Peckham to give challengers a chance to make their case and Corbett the opportunity to contest their allegations.
Under Maine law, a candidate must have at least two years of supervisory law enforcement experience, unless they meet certain exceptions, including having previously served as a sheriff or having served as a full-time law enforcement officer prior to 1990.
The SoS office gave Corbett an older version of candidacy documents, which only included the exception regarding having previously served as sheriff.
On that document, Corbett did not claim that he met the standard supervisory experience requirement, but he did falsely attest that he previously served as sheriff.
“Because Candidate Corbett had never held the office of sheriff, his attestation was untrue,” said Peckham.
“While Candidate Corbett’s decision to check a box attesting to a statement that was not true rather than bring the error on the consent form to the Elections Division is troubling, I conclude that it does not form a basis for disqualifying Candidate Corbett,” she added.
Peckham ultimately recommended that the SoS find Corbett eligible to run despite his false attestation because he qualified for the exception based on his law enforcement work prior to 1990.
“The purpose of section 336 is not to punish candidates for false statements but to ensure that unqualified candidates are not granted ballot access,” said Peckham.
Strangely, Corbett did not attempt to argue his qualification based on that exception; instead, he attempted to argue that he had previous supervisory experience, despite not attesting to that on his candidacy paperwork.
Between wasting time reminiscing with witnesses about various incidents in his law enforcement history, Corbett argued that he had relevant supervisory experience because he previously supervised an inmate during prisoner transport.
He also attempted to argue that his experience supervising students while teaching in Florida counted under Maine law. Witnesses repeatedly testified that neither thing qualified as supervisory experience, and Peckham eventually ruled that he had not served as a supervisor.
“Candidate Corbett has never held a law-enforcement or corrections position in which he exercised supervisory authority over subordinate personnel,” said Peckham.
During the hearing, Corbett also accused the challengers of simply trying to keep him off the ballot. It is not clear what he hoped to gain by that line of inquiry, since the explicit purpose of their challenge was to keep him off the ballot.
Over the hours of hearing time, the discussion strayed into allegations that he was colluding with current Democrat Sheriff William King and was simply running as a spoiler candidate to take votes from the Independent Pellerin.
Corbett denied those allegations, and Peckham declined to rule on that issue because she found no law requiring that a candidate have a genuine desire to hold office before qualifying to run.
“Neither challenger pointed to any legal requirement that a candidate for office have a sincere desire to win and hold the office for which they are running, nor am I aware of any such requirement. I therefore decline to resolve the parties’ dispute concerning this issue,” said Peckham.
The Maine Wire reached out to Corbett for comment on the challenges made against him and the allegations that he colluded with Sheriff King over a week ago, but he never responded.
SoS Shenna Bellows will now decide whether to accept Peckham’s recommended findings. Challengers will have the opportunity to object to the recommendation until 10:00 a.m. on Friday.
