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Maine Rep. Nina Milliken notified Hancock County its sheriff and a detective of a civil rights complaint, alleging they violated her constitutional rights when they investigated and charged her last year with breaking a rarely invoked campaigning law.
The notice of claim effectively notifies the parties of a potential civil lawsuit.
In the notice, Milliken, a Democratic representative from Blue Hill, alleges the county, Sheriff Scott Kane, and Detective Rick Canarr pursued a retaliatory criminal charge against her, violating her rights under the First and Fourth Amendments, and the Maine Civil Rights Act.
On April 4, 2025, Milliken went to the polls at the Blue Hill town office to support her friend Amanda Woog, who was running a write-in campaign for a seat on the Blue Hill Select Board.
Milliken said she greeted voters, told them her name and that she was friends with Woog but did not say that Woog was running for office or encourage voters to choose her.
“I was very intentional about my polling site communications because I knew it was important to comply with Maine election laws,” she said in the complaint.
Hancock County Sheriff Scott Kane, a Republican who has held office since 2015, later assigned a detective to investigate Milliken after “several citizens” contacted him with concerns that the second-term lawmaker tried to influence voters before they cast ballots, according to an investigation report obtained by the BDN last October.
State law allows representatives of a candidate to greet voters at the polls as long as they do not express support for them or name the office the candidate is running for.
Of 15 people interviewed by the detective, two voters recalled Milliken making statements that would have violated state law, including, “I support Amanda Woog for selectman.” Others could not remember her exact wording or described the lawmaker making statements that are allowable under the law. One “overheard Milliken saying ‘I’m a friend of Amanda Woog’ maybe 200 times,” according to the report.
A local prosecutor brought the charge against Milliken on Sept. 4, 2025, but Natasha Irving, the district attorney in midcoast Maine, who assumed supervision of the case after Hancock County District Attorney Bob Granger recused himself over a conflict of interest, dismissed the case a month later, citing new evidence that painted “a new and more complete picture of the events of that day.”
That evidence included text messages that Milliken sent to Secretary of State Shenna Bellows shortly after leaving the polls attempting to clarify that her actions were legal, Irving said.
“I have been standing at the polls and saying ‘I am friends with Amanda Woog’ (she is a write-in candidate). That is legally allowed, correct?” Milliken wrote.
It is unusual for prosecutors to pursue minor violations at polling places, where such rules are typically enforced by local election officials who tell candidates to move.
Milliken’s attorneys at Johnson, Webbert & Beard, LLP, said she may be the first person to be charged under the state law barring political influence at the polls, which has been on the books for more than 20 years.
At the time she was charged, Milliken, a progressive member of the legislative committee overseeing police, called her prosecution politically motivated, citing her willingness to criticize law enforcement and opposition to expanding police budgets.
In 2021, she called on Kane to resign in an Ellsworth American column after the sheriff temporarily barred a provider from giving addiction services to inmates at the county jail over its support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Being charged with a crime I knew I had not committed was one of the most difficult and terrifying experiences of my life. I barely slept and lived in constant fear that someone would harm me or my family after my face was suddenly everywhere in the news,” Milliken said in a Thursday news release.
“I knew the charge would cause irreparable harm to my career and my reputation, and I don’t think I have ever been more stressed about anything in my life.”
The BDN was not immediately able to reach Kane, Canarr or members of the Hancock County commission.
BDN writer Callie Ferguson contributed reporting.
