Greens under attack? (continued)

WHY WAS THE AG SO HARSH?

A retired train brakeman and advertising copywriter, Fred Dolgon spends much of his time as a tireless worker for liberal causes.

"He got convicted of overexuberance," Sharon said of Dolgon. A New Yorker by birth, Dolgon "talks a mile a minute all day long," he said. "All he did was point out on a ballot where you’re supposed to vote" to two elderly people who already had said they wanted to vote for LaFortune.

"He was found guilty of knowingly violating the process," Robbin said of Dolgon’s misdemeanor conviction.

But according to the Journal Tribune, Justice Brennan said, when he rendered the verdict, "There is nothing here that shows Fred Dolgon is a bad guy. Nothing here shows that he was anything other than an honorable guy." Nevertheless, the judge concluded, according to the Biddeford newspaper, that "pointing at Lafortune’s name was an attempt to influence, even when a voter had indicated her preference for the candidate beforehand."

Biddeford Democratic State Representative Joanne Twomey spoke at a dinner in January supporting Dolgon in the middle of his legal troubles. "Fred, of all people, is a victim in all of this," she said in her speech, according to the Biddeford-Saco-Old Orchard Beach Courier.

Sharon believes innocence and ignorance are the reasons for the misdemeanor convictions of Dolgon and Whitten, and "the law is so obscure."

Robbin confirmed that she made a plea offer to Dolgon of six months in jail. Jail-time offers were made to other defendants, Sharon said.

Septuagenarian Dolgon commented: "And the last time I got in trouble was when I was 14 and got caught smoking in the subway!"

WHY DID PAT COLWELL FIRE BEN CHIPMAN?

When Chipman was indicted, it was Patrick Colwell who suspended him without pay because, as House speaker, he was in charge of the employment of all House legislative aides, even one serving another party. The allegation against Chipman was serious, he said at the time. "People in our country need to feel that they’re not under any threat or coercion to vote," the Press Herald quoted him as saying.

Greens said that Colwell, who has a reputation for partisanship, would have been fairer to follow the precedent of Scott Anthoine, a Republican House staffer charged in 2000 with falsifying names on a candidate’s petition. Although when Anthoine was charged he took an unpaid leave of absence from his legislative job for several months to work as a consultant to the Republican Party, then-House Speaker Michael Saxl, a Democrat, allowed him to return to State House employment until his 2001 trial. He was found guilty, sentenced to two days in jail, and quit political work — but in an interview he said Saxl generously had offered to have him take a leave pending his appeal (which he eventually lost).

Colwell said recently that by suspending Chipman he believed he was following the precedent set by Saxl in the case of Anthoine. "The gentleman was under indictment," he said.

"It was tough on Ben," observed Meiklejohn of Chipman. "It was a horrible winter for him" after he lost his State House job.

Current Democratic Speaker of the House John Richardson said he would reinstate Chipman. "If you are found not guilty, then you are not guilty," he said emphatically.

DID THE AG HOLD THE GREENS TO AN UNUSUAL STANDARD?

The legal actions against the Biddeford Green campaigners began after Wayne Whitten delivered an absentee ballot to City Hall for Theresa Pelletier, 79. She apparently complained to her son, Roland Pelletier, about Whitten’s handling of the ballot. According to Green defense coordinator Flagler, this was "the match to the fire." Roland Pelletier admitted in an interview that candidate LaFortune "wasn’t my choice," but he claimed he had no axe to grind, as some Biddeford Greens believe.

According to Fred Dolgon, Democratic operatives from Augusta moved to Biddeford in the last days of the campaign because party chieftains were worried that LaFortune might win. "When the word got out that we were ‘banking’ all these absentee ballots," it sounded the alarm in Augusta, he said. He believes they helped move along the investigation.

But two Democratic operatives from Augusta who said they worked on Beaudette’s campaign, Ryan MacDonald and Toby McGrath, deny any involvement with the Greens’ absentee-ballot troubles, although McGrath admitted he talked with the police about the subject. MacDonald said he was busy bringing in absentee ballots for their campaign, and McGrath said he was busy managing the Beaudette campaign for the last month. Both men then and now work for the House majority office as aides.

Except for Roland Pelletier and his mother, "the police went to the people, the people didn’t go to the police," claimed Arlene Dolgon, Fred’s wife, who attended all the trials. Flagler made the same point: "No other complaints spontaneously came in."

The attorney general’s office said a normal investigation took place as reports of irregularities surfaced. The AG got involved because, simply, "we have to look into complaints," insisted Robbin — who said she is a "regular Democrat," not an activist Democrat.

The AG’s office made an extraordinary move, however, in supervising the Biddeford police in attempting to telephone the 179 people whose absentee ballots had been brought in by the LaFortune campaign workers. Although the Biddeford police would not respond to repeated attempts by the Phoenix to ask questions about their handling of the case, they apparently interviewed individuals in person who felt there had been irregularities in the obtaining of their absentee ballots.

(The Biddeford police and the LaFortune campaign were also involved in another controversy. After the February 2004 special election, the Press Herald reported, citing the police, that the Green campaign had been linked to a mysterious, last-minute dirty-tricks-type flier connecting Democrat Beaudette to support for gay marriage. But assistant attorney general Robbin said recently that an investigation could not find a connection. "We hit a dead end," she said.)

Much of the state’s case broke down, according to the defendants, on the faulty memory of the elderly people whom they put on the stand. "They were leading people, and a lot of them didn’t remember voting," Fred Dolgon said. Robbin conceded that her prosecution suffered because elderly voters "have a harder time with memory."

The Greens see the telephone survey as a kind of discrimination.

"If we had $200,000 to give to private investigators and had them interview everyone on the Portland peninsula [who voted by absentee ballot], I’m sure we could come up with five or six people who’d say ‘Yeah, he said, "vote for Herb Adams,"’ " said Green Party leader Meiklejohn, using a Portland Democratic state representative as a hypothetical example.

Fred Dolgon said the absentee-ballot law is "ambiguous" and, given its haziness, "there are bound to be infractions or ambiguities that, when investigated by the police, [can be used] to make a case" against a ballot gatherer.

Flagler said ignorance of the law is a big problem. Whitten’s conviction for accepting money for absentee ballot collecting, he said, occurred because campaign checks had "absentee ballots" or the like written on them — hardly something someone would do if he or she thought it was wrong, he said.

"We aggressively investigate any complaint about the election process," Robbin repeated.

What happened to the Biddeford 4 "reinforces my belief that a lot of civilization is based on corruption," said Fred Dolgon. "The effort to smear the Green Party was a planned thing."

"So long as you have a major party in control of the legal system," said John Flagler, "you have to be very careful." In an email, he added: "It ain’t easy being Green."

But the Greens said they are making the best of what happened. With their orientation toward reform, they are trying "to get a multipartisan committee together, we hope in cooperation with the Secretary of State," to produce a pamphlet on absentee-voting rights, said Garrold, the state party chair. Both the prosecution and the defense relate that Justice Brennan urged at Dolgon’s trial that the absentee-ballot process be clarified.

Even prosecutor Robbin agreed with this suggestion: "Maybe they should do some reform."

By no means are all Green leaders bitter. Flagler called the court system "scrupulously fair and, when permitted, even compassionate."

But he was not talking about the political system.

"I’m not sure why they’re feeling sore," prosecutor Robbin said of the Greens she tried to put in jail. "There was substantial evidence."

"I’d be sore," said defense attorney Sharon.

Lance Tapley can be reached at ltapley@prexar.com