The Kennebunkport Board of Selectmen voted unanimously Wednesday March 23, to grant the appeal of Fr. Louis Braxton and restore his eligibility to vote in town after he was deemed ineligible to do so in January due to residency issues.  Tammy Wells photo

KENNEBUNKPORT – The board of selectmen voted unanimously to enroll  Fr. Louis Braxton as a Kennebunkport voter after determining he is a resident of the town. He had been removed as a voter in January following a hearing regarding his residency.

Selectmen conducted an online appeal hearing into his removal on Wednesday, March 23. Braxton, one of the Kennebunkport’s three Regional School Unit 21 directors, earlier that day, submitted a copy of his lease agreement with his landlord and a new Maine temporary driver’s license. He also completed his motor vehicle registration in the office that day, said Town Clerk and Registrar of Voters Tracey O’Roak.

“All of those documents together do qualify him as a registered voter of Kennebunkport,” O’Roak told the board.

“I think justice has been served,” said selectman Ed Hutchins at the conclusion of the unanimous vote to restore the voter registration.

Braxton was deemed ineligible to vote in Kennebunkport by former town clerk and voter registrar Jamie Mitchell on Jan. 28 following a hearing two weeks earlier.

In a Dec. 6 notice to Braxton, Mitchell, who has since left the town for another position, said she had received information that indicated Kennebunkport may not be Braxton’s principal residence, and called for a hearing under Title 21-A, section 161.4 of Maine’s voter registration laws. That section states, in part, that if a voter fails to offer satisfactory proof of qualifications to the registrar, either prior to or at the hearing, the registrar may cancel the voter’s registration.

Braxton’s address had been 128 Ocean Ave., Unit 7. The property was among four owned by Boughton Hotel Corp. that were torn down in the fall of 2021 as part of an upgrade to the Colony Hotel property.

Mitchell conducted a hearing with Braxton on Jan 13. Documents included in a packet of information to selectmen indicate he told her he had been providing in-home care to a Saco resident five or six days a week, but spent the rest of his time in Kennebunkport at various hotels.

Mitchell rendered her decision that Braxton could not be registered to vote at the 128 Ocean Ave. address.

Had his appeal been unsuccessful, it would have triggered a Kennebunkport vacancy on the RSU 21 school board because elected officials are required to be registered voters in the communities they represent. Braxton had run unopposed for RSU 21 director and was elected July 2020. Elections that were traditionally conducted in June were held in July that year, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.

Documents associated with the case show that the matter was brought to the town’s attention by resident James McMann, who emailed Town Manager Laurie Smith, Mitchell and the RSU 21 School Board on Nov. 12. McMann noted he had called the town office earlier in the day to inquire about Braxton’s updated address, since his former residence had been demolished, and said he had been told no updated address had been provided.

McMann was an unsuccessful candidate for the RSU 21 Board of Directors in the 2021 municipal elections.

At Wednesday’s appeal hearing, selectman Allen Daggett noted Braxton’s lease agreement had been dated March 1, and said had he brought that forth sooner, the matter could have been resolved more quickly.

Braxton explained he had been in California for a family emergency – taking care of and relocating a family member for the past month and a half, and had just returned to Kennebunkport about a week and a half earlier.

The online appeal hearing, which lasted just about 14 minutes, drew an audience of about 80 viewers.

Smith, in an email to the newspaper, said there have been hearings by the town clerk in the past.

“The town clerk over the years has had hearings about voter’s residency,” wrote Smith. “None of these hearings ever went to the appeal process.”

Town Attorney Tim Murphy told selectmen that Mitchell, the former town clerk and voter registrar, had decided the case based on the facts she had at the time.

“While she may have been right when she rendered her decision,” there is now new information, said Murphy, advising the board to formally grant Braxton’s appeal and direct O’Roak to enroll Braxton as a Kennebunkport voter, and they did.

Daggett noted that Mitchell had followed the law.

“It was a tough procedure, but in the end, it worked,” said chair Sheila Matthews-Bull.

“Thank you all very much,” said Braxton.