Melissa Innes

The Maine Supreme Court has sided with Melissa Innes in a recount dispute that dragged her primary race against Kimberly McLaughlin out for more than a month. Both are Democrats from Yarmouth running for a House nomination.

Click here for the court’s opinion. Innes said it came down around 11 a.m. this morning.

Innes said the court upheld the hand recount, which gave her a one-vote advantage. At a hearing last week, Harold Pachios, attorney for McLaughlin, argued that the recount was flawed because it came up one ballot short from what the optical scan machines tabulated.

The final count is 485 to 484.

Maine’s Supreme Court justices have not yet reached a decision on the case between Kimberly McLaughlin and Melissa Innes.

An official from the clerk’s office said Friday that she is not sure when one will be reached.

The two Democrats from Yarmouth, both vying for a nomination for a House seat, tied on election night, with 485 votes a piece. A hand recount favored Innes by two votes – but one ballot was missing.

Am I missing something?  Is one of the candidates a closet republican?  From what I can tell we have two decent democratic candidates with no obvious right of center tendencies. Why did this escalate to the point where we have expert witnesses from Iowa trying to support an argument that says machine counts are better than hand recounts?

UPDATED: The decision may or may not come down today, according to court officials.

The Maine Supreme Court could have a decision as early as today in the case between Melissa Innes and Kimberly McLaughlin, the Democratic candidates for the Yarmouth state House seat whose primary battle ended in a tie.

In the June 10 primary, both got 485 votes. A recount put Innes ahead by two votes.But in the recount, there was one ballot missing, which McLaughlin said was for her.

Then Innes challenged two ballots and McLaughlin challenged one, sending the case to the court.

Two Yarmouth Democrats caught in a tie for a House seat nomination will appear before the Maine Supreme Court July 7.

Melissa Innes and Kimberly McLaughlin both received 482 votes on June 10, primary day. McLaughlin disputed one ballot, Innes disputed two.

The court will decide the merits of the three ballots next week.

Innes said she will be submitting her brief to the court today.

“I’ll just be happy when the primary is over,” Innes said. “We need to bring to Democrats in Yarmouth back together.”

Two legislative candidates found themselves in a frustrating predicament Friday morning.

Legislative candidates have the opportunity to sign the “2008 Maine Code of Fair Campaign Practices” with the Ethics Commission. Doing so is voluntary. Kenneth Capron of Portland and Kimberly McLaughlin of Yarmouth allege that their opponents signed the code and then violated it, and brought the case before the commission at their monthly meeting Friday.

After an hour-long discussion over jurisdiction, the commission members determined that they had no authority to enforce the code.