[updated] MAINE SECRETARY OF STATE CHARLIE SUMMERS WINS ELECTION AND JULIE FLYNN GETS TO COUNT HER BOSS’ VOTES

 

6.27.12

 

BDN reports “The secretary of state’s office administers Maine elections, and the Maine People’s Alliance says Summers, a Republican, should resign because of a conflict in overseeing his own election. “They want me to resign and I’m not going to do it,” Charlie Summers said Tuesday after criticism from the Maine People’s Alliance and Maine Democratic Party.” “Summers brushed aside both complaints, saying his deputy, Julie Flynn, will oversee the November election as she has for the past 18 years.”

 

“Besides, Summers said, others have held the same job while running for higher office. Democrat Bill Diamond of Windham was secretary of state during his losing bid for Congress in 1994. Democrat Joe Brennan was attorney general when he ran for governor and won in 1978. Maine’s constitutional offices — secretary of state, state treasurer and attorney general — often serve as a springboard to elected office in Maine.”

 

“Maine Attorney General William Schneider, who lost to Summers in a six-way Republican primary, had said he’d give up his job to devote his full attention to the Senate race, if he had won the nomination.”

 

Further evidence will prove that Senator Bill Diamond failed in his duties during his tenure as Secretary of State. He covered up frauds perpetrated by Clairma Matherne, Clerk, City of Biddeford. As far as Joe Brennan, the evidence speaks for itself. Maine Attorney General William Schneider should be removed from office for Misprision of Felony, 18 U.S.C. sec. 4 and Obstruction of Justice.

 

This goes beyond a “conflict of interest” as the evidence proves in this post. Secretary Summers is following the same pattern of corruption that has been ongoing for years by both major parties. IMO, a full investigation into the predicate acts of Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn, Asst. A.G. Leanne Robbins and Jonathan Wayne, Director of the Ethics Commission, is long overdue. Why won’t the Maine People’s Alliance and Maine Democratic Party address the major issue?

 

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Maine held its primary election on June 12, 2012. Democrats had four candidates; Republicans had six all vying to be Maine’s replacement for long-serving Republican U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe.

 

Maine Secretary of State “Charlie Summers has won the Republican nomination to succeed his former boss U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe who abruptly ended her campaign in February, citing partisan gridlock in the Senate. Snowe employed Summers as her state director for six years.” He was Snowe’s state director from 1995 to 2004. However, “Immediately after abandoning her re-election bid, she donated her mailing list to Maine Attorney General William Schneider to help him gather petition signatures to get on the primary ballot and finished fifth in Tuesday’s six-way primary.”

 

Andrea Mitchell’s exclusive interview with Sen. Olympia Snowe when she ubruptly decided not to seek re-election and giving possible candidates approximately two weeks to gather signatures. “Having a milestone birthday helps you to focus about whether or not I was prepared to commit for another six years in the United States Senate.” I find it hard to believe that Senator Snowe didn’t know last year that she was coming up upon a “milestone birthday.”

The Maine People’s Alliance is calling for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Charlie Summers to resign his job as secretary of state citing conflict of interest because his office oversees elections. Summers has said he will remove himself from overseeing the election by delegating those duties to staff.

Summers has handed over management of elections to Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn, who runs the secretary of state’s elections bureau, in an attempt to avoid a conflict of interest as he runs for the Senate. Summers also sidestepped any perception of conflict about running for the Senate while serving as the state’s top elections official. Secretary of State Summers will have control over the same ballot on which Candidate Summers will appear and Julie Flynn will count her boss’ votes.

“(Deputy Secretary of State) Julie (Flynn) is in charge of the Bureau of Corporations and Elections,” Summers noted. “Ultimately, she’ll give what her findings are. And if there were some kind of problem, then obviously I would consult with her, I would consult with the Attorney General’s Office and make a correct decision.”

Let’s take a look at how Secretary Summers makes “correct decisions” and the disgraceful, unlawful, job performance of Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn, in concert with the Attorney General’s Office.

Letter to Secretary of State Summers, August 2001

Reply from Secretary of State, November 7, 2011.

FOIA Request to Secretary of State Summers, November 14, 2011.

FOIA reply from Secretary Summers, December 1, 2011.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Secretary Summers did not find that there is significant evidence to support an investigation into the City of Biddeford’s election fraud of 2004. Deputy Secretary of State, Julie Flynn, “thoroughly” examined the incident with the Attorney General’s Office. Secretary Summers was confident Deputy Secretary of State, Julie Flynn, arrived at the proper outcome. To the best of his knowledge, his “office does not possess any documentation of Ms. Flynn’s review of the matter in question as the process was based on oral communication. Please understand that I am not denying your request for documents; it is just that what you have requested does not exist.”

An “oral communication” does non constitute an investigation! Had a full and fair investigation been conducted Ms. Flynn, and Asst. A.G. Leanne Robbins, would have viewed the Post Office’s role in this state’s scam against decent, honest people who run for office. Campaign flyers and postage paid with clean election money were returned after the “post office forgot to mail them.” They were returned as “undeliverable.” This is a lie! Calls were made to many of the people who did not receive this mailing and did receive mail as addressed.

Where is transparency in government and accountability where it’s concerned? Are we to  trust that Summers will make the “correct decisions” in the upcoming election? There is not even a justification for his run for U.S. Senate. Secretary Summers has some explaining to do!

Where does the buck stop?

 Related: click here, here.