A man whose property is split by the town line between Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor pleaded guilty to voting twice in several recent elections in Lincoln County Superior Court on Oct. 28.
Derek Abbott, 44, received a deferred disposition and was sentenced to 120 hours of community service. If Abbott completes the service and does not commit any crimes for the next year, the felony charges will be dropped.
Although the state’s evidence only shows that Abbott voted twice in 2008 and 2009, Abbott said in an interview following the hearing that he’s voted twice for about five years.
Because his property – and in fact his house, Abbott said – straddles the town line, Abbott pays taxes in both towns. Although prohibited by state law, Abbott feels this entitles him to vote on local issues in both towns, he said.
“I pay taxes,” Abbott said following his hearing, adding the selectmen and local ordinances in both towns affect him. “If I have a problem with what’s going on, what am I supposed to do? If one of the towns would pick my house and only their laws would apply to me, I’d be fine with it,” he said.
Unfortunately, Abbott was also voting twice in state and federal elections, including presidential elections. Until investigators with the Attorney General’s office contacted him, Abbott was not aware that voting twice was illegal, he said.
“I wasn’t quiet about it; everybody knew I was voting twice,” Abbott said. “I didn’t know I couldn’t do that.”
The Attorney General’s office discovered that Abbott was voting twice as part of a statewide voter-fraud sweep, said Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin, who prosecuted Abbott.
In 2007, a federal computerized central voter registry was created. This allowed officials to see town-by-town who was voting more than once. In Maine, the AG’s office discovered about 20 instances of what appeared to be duplicate voting, Robbin said.
“All but two turned out to be clerical error,” Robbin said.
When a detective from AG’s office called Abbott after his name came up as a duplicate voter, the detective was expecting it to be another clerical error, Robbin said.
“When we called Mr. Abbott, he said, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been voting twice for years,'” she said.
Abbott confirmed this story after the hearing.
The only other case of voting fraud in the state discovered in this sweep was a man from Northern Maine who similarly voted twice essentially on accident, Robbin said.
“These aren’t people with an agenda,” Robbin said. “They’re good-old-boys.”
Robbin said she sympathized with Abbott and would have given him a lesser charge, but “there are no misdemeanor voting fraud offenses.”
Judge Andrew Horton echoed Robbin’s sentiment during the sentencing.
Horton said the charges seem harsh in Abbott’s case, “but voting is crucial to the functioning of our republic. One can understand why the penalties for disrupting that system are severe.”
Fortunately for Abbott, he will still be allowed to vote. Although many states bar convicted felons from voting, the State of Maine allows it.
“That was his first concern when I told him he had committed a felony,” Robbin said. “He was distraught that he might not be able to vote anymore.”
Abbotts’ hearing came just days before the gubernatorial election, and both Robbin and Horton were careful to point out that they did not want this case to discourage anyone from voting. “I encourage all of us to vote – but only once,” Horton said.
“We have a hard enough time getting people to vote at all, and he’s taking the time to vote twice,” Robbin said.
