Judge reinstates GOP candidate to Mass. primary ballot despite ‘substantial evidence’ of fraud

A state judge on Friday reinstated one of two statewide Republican candidates knocked off the primary ballot amid fraud allegations, ruling that a technical error outweighs the “substantial evidence” his campaign submitted fake signatures in order to qualify.

Judge Jeffrey T. Karp ruled that Michael Walsh, the state Republican Party’s endorsed pick for attorney general, should have his name put back on the September ballot, effectively overturning a decision handed down last month by the State Ballot Law Commission, which found that hundreds of signatures Walsh submitted were likely fake.

The decision turned on technical grounds, and more specifically, the mail. Karp found that a state Democratic Party official who originally challenged Walsh’s place on the ballot did not correctly submit his objection under state law, which requires it be sent via registered or certified mail. Because of that, the commission should have been barred from even weighing the initial challenge to his candidacy.

“This matter has brought this court to the intersection of serious, credible allegations of voter signature fraud and the rule of law,” Karp wrote in his 14-page decision. “… Despite substantial evidence in the record of signature fraud, the court is constrained to rule that the SBLC lacked jurisdiction to hear [the original] objection.”

As of Friday afternoon, Karp had yet to rule on a related case involving Anne Manning Martin, a Republican lieutenant governor candidate whom the commission also kicked off the primary ballot amid similar fraud allegations.

David Mackey, an attorney representing the commission, declined to comment on the Walsh ruling Friday, including whether he planned to appeal Karp’s decision.

Walsh did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Karp’s ruling in Walsh’s case is the latest development in a months-long signature fraud controversy that has prompted district attorneys in Norfolk and Plymouth counties to open investigations, and already tanked the campaign of the Republican Party’s endorsed pick for lieutenant governor.

The case centers on the work of Joe Bronske, a paid signature gatherer hired by Manning Martin, Walsh, and Anne Brensley, the Wayland Republican who, just weeks after winning her party’s endorsement, said she not collect enough signatures to qualify for the September ballot. She accused Bronske of failing to gather the number of signatures she had paid him for, and turning in some that were forged — including some, she told the commission, that belonged to voters who had long since died.

In court documents filed ahead of a hearing this week, Mackey, the lawyer representing the State Ballot Law Commission, accused Bronske of engaging “in a systematic — although ultimately obvious and easily detected — fraud” by forging signatures to help Manning Martin and Walsh make the September primary ballot.

“Rather than gather signatures of voters, Bronske forged the signatures of registered voters in the Town of Weymouth on nomination papers in the same order for multiple candidates, apparently working off of a list of voters he received from the Massachusetts Republican Party,” Mackey wrote in documents filed in Manning Martin’s case.

In interviews with the Globe, a dozen people whose signatures appeared on Manning Martin and Walsh’s nomination papers said they did not sign the sheets.

When pressed this week about the alleged forged signatures, a lawyer for Manning Martin said no voters were brought before the state commission to verify that their signatures were forged. Walsh said he had denied the fraud allegations, and when asked whether he submitted documents with fake signatures, he said, “I don’t think so.”

During a court hearing this week, Walsh and Manning Martin argued that the State Ballot Law Commission erred in deciding to move forward with an objection to the signatures on their nomination papers.

The two candidates said the people who objected to the signatures did not follow the strict rules laid out in state law for notifying the candidates of a challenge to their signatures.

Massachusetts Democratic Party executive director Adam Roof and Shawn Oliver, another Republican lieutenant governor candidate, challenged Manning Martin’s signatures. Only Roof challenged Walsh’s signatures.

Any person challenging a candidate’s nomination papers must send their objection to the candidate by certified mail, with return receipt requested, no later than the day after the objection is filed with the state. Failure to follow those rules “shall invalidate any objection,” according to state law.

But in its decision, the State Ballot Law Commission said Oliver presented evidence that his objection was mailed by the law firm representing him.

An attorney from that firm said staff had “affixed the appropriate certified return receipt mail labels to the envelope” containing the objection and deposited them in the firm mailroom’s postal service bin, according to the commission’s decision.

Oliver later provided a copy of a “green card” — or a return receipt — stamped by the USPS, “showing proof of mailing,” the commission said in its decision.

Walsh said Roof originally said that he sent the objection to Walsh by certified mail, but later claimed a deputy in the Democratic party “attempted but failed to send all of the envelopes by certified mail.”

In his decision, Karp wrote that “there is no dispute that Roof failed to comply” with the requirement to serve an objection via registered or certified mail, with a return receipt requested. The judge said he “cannot ignore the clear language” of state law outlining the mailing requirement.

“It is this court’s view that the SBLC’s reasoning is misplaced and that the SBLC erred as a matter of law by failing to dismiss the objection,” Karp wrote.

In court Wednesday, Mackey argued that Karp, the Superior Court judge, should focus on one key test — whether strict adherence to the procedural requirements overrode the commission’s primary purpose of detecting voter fraud.

“To disqualify the objections here based on certified mail requirements . . . would then allow names to appear on the ballot as a result of, in our view, plain and obvious signature fraud,” Mackey told Karp.

Mary-Ellen Manning, Anne Manning Martin’s sister and lawyer, said Karp had a “simple” decision to make.

“The State Ballot Law Commission is governed by statute. It’s a creature of statute. It must operate in accordance with the statutory jurisdiction,” she said.

Deb O’Malley, a spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin, said his office asked the court to issue a final decision in the cases by July 14 in order for officials to prepare Republican primary ballots for local clerks to send to overseas and military voters by July 18.

O’Malley said she did not yet know whether Galvin’s office planned to take any legal action in the wake of Walsh’s ruling. She said officials were still awaiting the ruling in the Manning Martin case Friday.

“These are two separate cases, but they very much run together,” she said.