USM students criticized two petition circulators last Thursday for using forceful techniques to gather signatures and because they are not residents of Maine.
Dean of Student Life Joe Austin was called on to speak with two men, Bart Sanso and Jack Murdock, both of Florida. Students asked Austin to speak on their behalf because they questioned Murdock and Sanso’s legitamacy as petition circulators.
The two men were gathering signatures for two different inititatives, one for a bill that would reduce the five percent multiple-listing services fee for listing property sales or rentals, and another to permit a casino to be built near Sunday River ski resort in northern Oxford County. Sanso and Murdock were set up between Luther Bonney and Masterton Halls on the Portland campus.
Katherine Smith, a sophomore theatre arts major, said she wanted to read the petitions but could not understand the wording of the initiatives. She knew another student, Dan Jussaume, a junior political science major, was working a table in nearby Luther Bonney Hall. When she tried to bring copies of the two petitions to him for help interpreting them, she said Sanso grabbed the papers from her hand and told her the petitions were “not for distribution.”
“It wasn’t just a little tug either, he swiped it right out of my hand,” said Smith. “He never told me I couldn’t take it off-site and that it was available online.”
“There was concern that they were asking people to sign the petition in a forceful way,” Austin said, “and there was some question of whether they were allowed to read the petitions.”
Austin said other students complained that Sanso and Murdock were trying to hide the wording of each ballot initiative. One student was concerned that the circulators were not Maine residents and may be supporting out-of-state financial interests, he added.
After several students made formal complaints in Austin’s office, he confronted Murdock and Sanso. The circulators defended their jobs to Austin, “What I do is legitimate,” Murdock said, “and I stand behind it. I’ve been doing this for 10 years.”
After collecting signatures, Murdock continued, each circulator must provide evidence to the municipality’s notary the signatures are valid and the circulators witnessed each one.
Austin warned Murdock and Sanso against harassment and reminded petitioners to be cordial to students and professors while on campus.
“Our issue is their ability to be there and not interfere with other activities, whether or not they produce those signatures,” said Austin.
Whether or not residents of Florida could gather signatures for Maine ballot initiatives concerned some students, including Jussaume.
“The fact that non-residents of the state are pushing Maine initiatives on residents is not fair,” he said.
“They do have to be registered Maine voters and residents,” said Melissa Packard, director of elections for Maine’s secretary of state, in a telephone interview last Friday. “The circulator has to appear before a notary and take the oath that they witnessed the signatures,” adding that a Maine resident must be with any circulators from out of state.
“They’re supposed to be Maine citizens,” said Herb Adams, Portland’s District 119 representative and a USM political science professor, “and if they’re not going to admit it, won’t tell you who they are, refuse to give you names or tell you who they’re working for, I would think so many red flags just went up there that any prudent student would say, ‘I want nothing to do with you. You’re not getting my signature.’
“You have several rights here,” Adams continued. “Number one, you have the right to read the whole petition. Number two, you have the right to sign or not. And number three, you have a right to know if they are legally circulating it. If any number of those make you uncomfortable, don’t sign it.”
Seth Carey, founder and president of Evergreen Mountain Enterprises-the proposed casino’s sponsor and financier-said a Maine resident was assigned to accompany Murdock and Sanso, but was “sitting in the car” when Austin confronted the circulators.
“These people are just the presenters,” said Carey. “We’re just trying to get this issue on the ballot. If people want to sign they’re not being forced.”
Despite Austin’s warning on conduct, the petitioners remained on campus.