Defeated state Senate candidate Kari MacRae has asked a Plymouth County judge to dismiss her lawsuit alleging that election officials failed to properly verify the identity of voters in last year’s primary.
MacRae, a Republican from Bourne, sued six towns in October – including Plymouth – asking judges in Plymouth and Barnstable Superior courts to conduct expedited reviews of the early voting ballots to determine if she was the winner of the Sept 3 primary.
But by the time she filed the cases, Secretary of State William Galvin had declared former state representative Matt Muratore the winner — by just 39 votes. That came after recounts chipped away at his original margin of victory — 45 votes.
In her suit, MacRae claimed that in six towns election officials did not always compare signatures on early ballots with signatures on voters’ applications for early ballots as required by law.
But in a document filed in Plymouth Superior Court on Dec. 27, MacRae’s lawyers said that because Governor Maura Healey certified the election results on Dec. 4, the court no longer had jurisdiction over the dispute.
Her attorney, Brian Gaff, asked that a planned Feb. 12 hearing on motions to dismiss the suit that were filed by the towns of Plymouth and Plympton, as well as Secretary of State William Galvin, be canceled.
Gaff, however, wrote that MacRae still stands by the arguments she made in her opposition to the motions to dismiss.
She had alleged there were multiple instances of noncompliance with the signature comparison requirement, but that when she brought these issues to the attention of local officials, they did nothing.
In October, she asked judges to review a small number of ballots — and if they found more than 39 defective ones, the primary election results, and by extension, the November general election results, would be called into question.
Now MacRae acknowledges her case is essentially over.
Even before the recounts were finished, the general election ballots were being printed — leaving her with little recourse, she said. She could bring lawsuits but their chance of success was virtually nil, officials told her.
“It’s a huge fairness problem,” she said in an interview.
MacRae said she hopes that the process for voting by mail is tightened so that it’s more like the more stringent procedure for filing absentee ballots.
Or, she said, towns should schedule their primaries in the spring so candidates have more time to challenge results if they suspect problems.
Her lawyers did not yet file similar documents to drop the suit in Barnstable Superior Court, where she also filed suit against election officials in Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee, and Sandwich.
Muratore won the Republican primary but was defeated in the Nov. 5 general election by former Democrat state representative Dylan Fernandes of Falmouth.
Fernandes succeeded State Sen. Susan Moran, D-Falmouth, who ran unopposed for Barnstable County superior court clerk.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.