State police are investigating the possibility that Dennis Michaud's failed gubernatorial campaign submitted forged signatures -- including those of two dead men -- on his nomination papers.

The Republican candidate submitted 57 signatures to the Town of Scituate, but election officials there deemed only 11 valid.

Journal File Photo

Dennis Michaud

The vast majority of signatures didn't match those on voter registration cards, according to Gail Chatfield, the town's canvassing clerk. She also said the handwriting on several signatures looked similar and some people misspelled the name of the street they live on.

"A voter should know how to spell their own street," she said yesterday.

The list also included the names of two deceased Scituate men -- one who died in June 2005 and the other in November 2005.

State police Maj. Steven G. O'Donnell would only say that detectives are reviewing a complaint filed Tuesday by the town's Board of Canvassers. Secretary of State Matt Brown's spokesman Peter Kerwin said no other communities reported similar problems.

"That's not good. Matter of fact, it's pretty embarrassing," Michaud said when first told of the allegations by a reporter yesterday. "If there is any type of investigation, I will cooperate fully."

Michaud dropped out of the race Friday after failing to collect the 1,000 signatures necessary to be on the ballot. He said his staff gathered about 1,300, but local canvassing boards judged only 933 as valid.

The campaign never went to Scituate to gather signatures, Michaud said, but probably collected them during trips to the state's beaches and malls. He said his staffers were paid hourly for their work. However, he said they might have also been paid for every sheet of signatures filled up, but he was not sure.

"Quite frankly, I'm pretty freaking embarrassed that we couldn't get 1,000 signatures. To me that's a big screwup," he said. "Did I have 100-percent control over what happened? The answer is no, I did not."

Fifty-two of the 57 signatures collected from Scituate residents came from Michaud's staffer Robert Cooper, of Coventry. All but nine of his were deemed invalid, including the two deceased men. (Michaud collected another two Scituate signatures himself, one of which was invalid. Another staffer collected three others, two of which were invalid.)

Each worker certified their own papers saying the people listed signed it "in my presence."

"There was nothing done improperly," Cooper said yesterday. "I know my handwriting won't match any of those [signatures] because I didn't do it."

Asked how the mistakes could have occurred, he said: "Honestly, I can't tell you. I don't know. This is all a surprise to me. I did have other people with me and we switched papers back and forth."

Barbara D. Colvin, chair of the Scituate Board of Canvassers, said she is not sure what happened with Michaud's signatures, but that "this was more than a normal occurrence."

The board was told last week about the problems as it was called to certify the signatures.

"We were all quite upset," said Jewell Augustine, an alternate to the board. "I couldn't believe it. I was in disbelief that someone could do this.

"I don't know why someone would do it," she added. "Ethically it's not right. It might be an easy way out to just put names down on a sheet of paper and hope no one catches the forgery."

Kerwin, the secretary of state's spokesman, said it is a "fairly regular occurrence" that some signatures are thrown out. The state, however, does not keep a tally of how many signatures were submitted compared with how many were actually certified.

But Michaud's problems in Scituate fall well outside any norm, with 80 percent of his signatures thrown out.

The other two gubernatorial candidates had minor problems with signatures collected from Scituate residents by the state parties on their behalf.

There were 40 signatures submitted on behalf of Governor Carcieri, a Republican, but only 34 qualified because 6 people signed multiple sheets, a common occurrence. Eight names were submitted on behalf of Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty, a Democrat. One was not certified.

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