March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Another name surfaces in ballot tampering case

AUGUSTA — Without naming anyone, Attorney General Michael E. Carpenter has indirectly confirmed that the second suspect in a ballot tampering investigation is Michael T. Flood, a former legislative committee clerk.

“I don’t think you have to worry about being sued” if Flood is publicly identified, Carpenter told an Augusta newspaper.

Rumors that Flood was a suspect have circulated widely since the investigation began, and at least one television station has reported it.

When asked last week whether he was a suspect in the ballot tampering investigation, Flood said, “I don’t have a thing to say about it. I’ve been advised I shouldn’t comment.”

Reached at his Houlton home, Carpenter was cautious Wednesday.

He said that the newspaper article identifying Flood was correct, but that the meaning of his statement had been misconstrued. Carpenter said, however, that he did not mean to confirm anyone as a suspect in the case.

From the beginning, Carpenter has said there were two suspects.

On Wednesday, he said that others ultimately may be implicated.

“We’re focused on a couple of individuals,” he said. “There are others we have questions about. I don’t know if we would call them suspects.”

Carpenter also said the possibility of an attempted coverup after the ballot tampering was being investigated.

The attorney general repeated that he and U.S. Attorney General Richard S. Cohen did not want to confirm officially the names of suspects in the ballot tampering case.

He noted that the investigating officers had not confirmed that Kenneth P. Allen, the suspended aide to House Speaker John L. Martin, D-Eagle Lake, was the other suspect in the case.

Republicans say they were told by Jonathan Hull, Martin’s legal counsel, that Allen admitted involvement in tampering with ballots in a House recount.

Flood and Allen were part of a Democratic team that handled the Democratic side in recounts of close legislative elections. Other members of the team were Hull, the lawyer; Molly Pitcher, a former Senate sergeant-at-arms; Jim Gormley, the legislative postmaster; and Ed Gorham, secretary-treasurer of the Maine AFL-CIO.

When a break-in was discovered on Dec. 11 at the room where ballots for recounts were stored, there were six House recounts under way. A seventh House recount and a Senate recount also have been requested.

Carpenter and Cohen initially focused on one House race, then expanded their probe to three races.

On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Walter E. Whitcomb, R-Waldo, asked Carpenter to add two more races to the probe — in Districts 101 and 82 — because of irregularities he said came up during the recounts.

Secretary of State G. William Diamond has put all recounts on hold until the investigation, which is already more than 2 weeks old, is finished.

Flood, 39, an Augusta resident, worked as a committee clerk for the Legislature from December 1985 until March 1992, the end of the last legislative session, when he resigned.

He has been unemployed since then, but managed the unsuccessful legislative campaign of Democrat Thomas Doore, an Augusta firefighter, against Rep. Sumner Lipman, R-Augusta, in House District 90.

Since the election, Flood has worked with Democrats on recounts, sometimes counting ballots, paired off with a Republican counter and a staff member of the Secretary of State’s Office.

Flood was clerk of the State and Local Government Committee for several years. He was earning $376 a week when he resigned from his position.

Rep. Ruth Joseph, D-Waterville, House chairman of the State and Local Government Committee, said of Flood, “He was extremely bright, resourceful, and he understood the issues.”


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