Update: James Libby ended his campaign for governor on Thursday afternoon.
Sen. James Libby has failed to qualify for Maine’s clean election program because of fraud allegations.
Libby was running in the 10-person field for the Republican nomination for this year’s gubernatorial race. He was the only prominent Republican trying to run as a clean election candidate. Candidates who qualify are eligible to receive public funds for their campaigns.
But the Maine Ethics Commission on Thursday quashed those aspirations after ruling that only 2,870 of the 3,937 qualifying $5 contributions Libby submitted were valid. He needed at least 3,200 to qualify for the clean election program.
In a 34-page ruling, the commission invalidated a number of signatures over missing or unsigned documents, a lack of proof that contributors were registered to vote and inauthentic signatures, among other reasons.
The most serious allegation raised in the ruling was that one of the four people collecting qualifying contributions for Libby’s campaign asked members of the public to sign forms that gave $5 without collecting contributions from them.
The commission’s staff had only since April 1 to review submitted documentation to check for fraudulent contributions but found 15 cases. The commission noted that it is currently “impossible to determine the exact number” of fraudulent qualifying contributions but it could exceed 100 cases.
There was no evidence that Libby authorized that signature-gatherer’s tactics, but the commission found he lacked staff who could have spotted the fraud sooner.
Libby, who announced his gubernatorial bid last May, has seven days to appeal the commission’s decision.
Corrections: An earlier version of this report incorrectly stated that the unnamed staffer accused of submitted fraudulent documentation for qualifying contributions also offered to pay someone under the table to help James Libby qualify for the primary ballot