{"id":3664,"date":"2026-06-26T22:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T22:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=3664"},"modified":"2026-06-26T22:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T22:04:11","slug":"mass-republicans-caught-up-in-a-signature-fraud-controversy-wont-be-on-september-primary-ballot-commission-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=3664","title":{"rendered":"Mass. Republicans caught up in a signature fraud controversy won\u2019t be on September primary ballot, commission rules"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Two Republican candidates for statewide office, including the state party\u2019s de facto nominee for attorney general, won\u2019t appear on the September primary ballot after the state\u2019s commission that oversees ballots determined that hundreds of nomination signatures they submitted were invalid. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Anne Manning Martin, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, and Michael Walsh, the party\u2019s endorsed candidate for attorney general, were both knocked off the ballot after the commission invalidated enough signatures collected from Massachusetts voters.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn accordance with the Ballot Law Commission\u2019s decisions, the names of Anne Manning Martin for Lieutenant Governor and Michael C. Walsh for Attorney General will not be printed on the September 1, 2026, state primary ballots,\u201d said Deb O\u2019Malley, a spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin\u2019s office.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

For Walsh, the commission invalidated 1,021 signatures of the 10,677 he turned in to the secretary of state\u2019s office, leaving him hundreds of signatures short of the 10,000 required to make the ballot.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Manning Martin, the commission invalidated 1,279 signatures her campaign submitted, leaving her with only 9,413 \u201cvalid signatures.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA general review of the certified signatures on the nomination papers also demonstrates they are likely fraudulent,\u201d the commission wrote in the decision.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walsh and Manning Martin did not immediately respond to requests comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The decision is the latest development in the signature fraud controversy that has now decimated the Republican ticket, knocking off two candidates for lieutenant governor and eliminating the party\u2019s sole challenger to Attorney General Andrea Campbell. The state Republican party, already struggling to field candidates down-ballot, is now only officially challenging for three of the six statewide constitutional offices, all of which are currently held by Democrats. <\/span><\/p>\n

Adam Roof, the state Democratic Party\u2019s executive director, filed challenges with the State Ballot Law Commission earlier this month, alleging that \u201cnumerous\u201d certified signatures the Walsh and Manning Martin campaigns submitted had been \u201cfraudulently obtained.\u201d Shawn Oliver, another Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, also challenged Manning Martin\u2019s candidacy on similar grounds.<\/span><\/p>\n

At issue were hundreds of signatures both Manning Martin and Walsh submitted to Secretary of State William F. Galvin\u2019s office as part of the 10,000 certified signatures they needed to collect to qualify for the ballot. Galvin\u2019s office alerted the candidates to the potentially fraudulent signatures after they were flagged by local clerks in Scituate, Hanover and Rockland.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The secretary\u2019s office also flagged the concerns for Anne Brensley, the state Republican Party\u2019s endorsed candidate for lieutenant governor. Brensley alleged that the signature gatherer she hired, Joe Bronske, failed to gather the number of signatures she had paid him for, and turned in some that were forged \u2014 including some that belonged to voters who had long since died, she told the panel during testimony Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brensley ultimately didn\u2019t have enough signatures to make the ballot, she told the Globe in May.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Manning Martin and Walsh also hired Bronske to collect signatures, campaign finance records show. Bronske declined to testify before the commission.<\/span><\/p>\n

The commission\u2019s ruling effectively clears the Republican lieutenant governor primary field for Oliver, who\u2019s campaigning as a running mate to GOP gubernatorial hopeful Brian Shortsleeve, though other candidates could still mount write-in campaigns. <\/span><\/p>\n

Lawyers for Roof and Oliver spent several days arguing their cases before the commission, a quasi-judicial body. During the hearings, Dan Winslow, an attorney for Oliver and a former Republican state representative, alleged that the case amounted to \u201cthe largest case of forgery on nomination papers in the history of Massachusetts.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Members of the five-person panel are appointed by the governor. Retired Judge Ernest Sarason, a Democrat, chairs the commission, which also includes attorney Joseph Eisenstadt, a Democrat; former state Senator and Democrat Joe Boncore; Kaitlyn Sprague, a Republican; and Jed Nosal, who is unenrolled.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Plymouth County District Attorney\u2019s Office told the Globe earlier this month they were investigating the swath of potentially fraudulent signatures. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur office is working with town clerks to investigate the validity of some ballot signatures collected in Scituate, Hanover, and Rockland,\u201d Beth Stone, a spokesperson for the Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz, said in a June 15 statement. \u201cThe investigation is ongoing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The state Republican party, already struggling to field candidates down-ballot, is now only officially challenging for three of the six statewide constitutional offices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nMass. 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