By Adam Swift
Town Clerk Denise Quist sent a letter to the Town Council this past Tuesday notifying the council that the recall petition for Councilor-at-Large Max Tassinari will not appear on the Tuesday, November 4, election ballot.
Quist initially rejected the recall petition because it did not meet the threshold of containing the signatures of 20% of the town’s registered voters. However, the backers of the recall went to the Board of Registrars of Voters to overturn Quist’s decision, arguing that the 20% language in the Town Charter meant only 20% of the voters who had participated in the most recent election, a much lower threshold that the petition easily exceeded.
The Registrars held a special meeting to take up the issue last Wednesday (September 3) and voted 3-0 to overturn Quist’s determination and ordered that the recall referendum be placed on the November ballot.
Quist initially went along with the Registrars’ decision and said that the recall question would be placed on the ballot. However, she reversed her position on Tuesday.
“Based in large part upon the receipt and review of the most recent additional information, advice, and directive from the Legal Counsel to the Secretary of State’s Election Division, and after consultation with the Town Attorney regarding my obligations, options, and previous objection to the Recall Petition, I have concluded that the document on the above date, titled CERTIFICATION OF THE PETITION TO RECALL MAX TASSINARI contains an inaccurate conclusion,” Quist wrote to the Town Council.
Quist went on to state that, as she previously had written on more than one occasion, the petition was not signed by the sufficient number of registered voters to satisfy the requirements of the Town Charter.
In addition, Quist continued, “Consequently, my original determination stands. The decision of the Board of Registrars is invalid as the board was without legal authority to make such Decision and Order.”
Quist had previously ruled that the nearly 2,000 recall petition signatures gathered by proponents for the recall did not meet the 20 percent of the total registered voters, (which would amount to 2,863) required under the provisions of the town charter.
Proponents of the recall, led by Diana Viens, claimed however, that the gathered signatures did meet the standard set by the town charter. The cover letter submitted in the request calling for the Board of Registrars to reverse Quist’s position from attorney Michael Walsh stated that “the central issue is the proper interpretation of Section 5(k) of the Charter, which requires a recall petition to ‘be signed by at least 20 percent of all registered voters — 2,863 signatures — rather than 20% who actually voted in the last town election, 822 signatures.’”
According to the letter from the attorney for the recall proponents, the electorate interpretation made by the clerk’s office was inconsistent with the Charter’s language, legislative history, constitutional standards, and “creates an unreasonable barrier to ballot access.”
On Sept. 8, before Quist’s letter to the town council on Sept. 9, Tassinari filed a complaint with the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Election Commission asking that the state office investigate the “conduct, practice, and or procedure of the Town of Winthrop’s Town Clerk and Board of Registrars to determine whether the Town Clerk or Board of Registrar actions were contrary to the general or specific laws concerning elections in the Commonwealth.”
But the legal maneuvering might not be over. Viens told the Sun-Transcript late Tuesday afternoon that the recall supporters may be taking Quist’s latest decision to court.
“Fortunately, we prepared for all scenarios, knowing that Max Tassinari is terrified of facing a recall election this November, as he knows he will be voted out by the People,” Viens stated. “The Town Clerk has illegally blocked ballot access and has exceeded her authority in an attempt to overturn the Board of Registrar’s lawful ruling. We will be in Court seeking an emergency order before the end of the week, and are confident that the People’s Democracy will be restored.”