LEWISTON — Less than a day before polls officially open in Maine, independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler sent an alert to supporters suggesting they can void previously cast absentee ballots and change their votes to support his candidacy if they want.

According to Cutler’s campaign manager, Ted O’Meara, “I don’t think, at this late hour, there will be large numbers of people” who decide to do this, but we “have heard from large numbers of people from around the state … that they wish they’d waited to vote for Eliot.”

Based on that feedback, O’Meara said the campaign consulted with its attorneys over the weekend and again Monday morning, and concluded that Maine law allows voters to change their votes under certain circumstances.

According to Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, his office has never interpreted Maine’s so-called spoiled ballots law to allow people to change their votes simply because they changed their minds, but after consulting with Cutler’s attorneys they reached agreement on language to allow voters to withdraw their absentee ballots and vote a second time during regular polling hours.

If someone who has voted by absentee tells a ballot clerk that their previously cast ballot “does not reflect my intent,” the completed absentee ballot can be withdrawn and a new ballot will be issued, Dunlap explained.

Once clerks begin counting absentee ballots at polling sites, though, no one can make a claim to retract their vote at that site. Late Monday, 64 Maine towns had already begun the absentee ballot counting process, and most other towns will begin as soon as polls open Tuesday morning.

“It’s extremely late in the game,” Dunlap said, to recall absentee ballots but, based on Cutler’s alert, several clerks called his office Monday to get instruction on the process should a voter make such a request.

According to O’Meara, the Cutler campaign issued its alert to “make sure people were aware that it was possible to do this.”

Dan DeMerritt, spokesman for GOP candidate Paul LePage’s campaign, sees the Cutler campaign move as a “large can of worms to open for a tiny amount of short-term political gain.”

Cutler is “playing this card that he’s got this great momentum,” DeMerritt said, but “he’s been watching too many of his TV commercials if he thinks he’s going to get a groundswell to change the vote.”

David Loughran, communications director for Democratic candidate Libby Mitchell’s campaign, agrees.

“It’s not surprising that a Washington lawyer who made millions finding loopholes in the environmental laws he helped write is trying to shoot loopholes in Maine’s voting laws on the eve of an election,” Loughran said.

Cutler’s move, Loughran said, “shows a callous disrespect for Maine voters and the voting process.”

O’Meara said the campaign was pushed to clarify Maine law on this point because of conflicting opinions on election law, and the interpretation that people cannot withdraw their ballots if they change their minds.

Dunlap said his office is ready to reissue ballots if requested, and will store the submitted absentee votes should there be a court challenge on election results after Tuesday’s counts are in.

“If there’s enough (absentee) votes to make a difference and someone wants to challenge it in court,” Dunlap said, the original absentee ballots can be made available through the courts. “We want to make sure the court has the tools they need” to rule on an election challenge, Dunlap said, and every ballot cast, including withdrawn absentee ballots, will be inventoried and stored.

In towns where there may be requests to recall absentee ballots in favor of casting new votes, Dunlap said the towns have instructions on how to issue the new ballots, and he has employees of the Department of Motor Vehicles detective bureau available to bring additional ballots to towns if needed. Clerks, under very specific circumstances, can also “photocopy ballots as long as they keep track of the numbers of ballots they make,” Dunlap said, but he’s certain there are enough mechanisms in place to prevent towns from running out of ballots.

Had Cutler’s campaign issued its alert a week ago, Dunlap said, the rate of absentee ballot recall may have been greater, but there was so little time between the alert and when polls open that he believes the impact on the process will be minimal.

DeMerritt wasn’t so sure clerks would avoid Election Day problems. “It’s great that you can vote by absentee in Maine,” he said. “It gives more people access to the ballot. But, when you start messing with it, there’s something undemocratic about it.”

“This,” he said, “is something beyond politics.”

For more information on Maine’s spoiled ballots law, go to: http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/21-a/title21-Asec693.html