NOTES BETWEEN PRINTED EDITIONS
GOP statewide candidates ruled ineligible for primary ballots
by Katie Castellani and Michael Norton Jun 26, 2026
BOSTON, June 26, 2026…..After holding hearings on signature fraud complaints, the State Ballot Law Commission ruled late Friday that lieutenant governor candidate Anne Manning Martin and Michael Walsh, who’s running for attorney general, are ineligible to appear on September’s primary ballot.
Opponents of the two Republican statewide candidates filed complaints alleging that they had filed hundreds of fraudulent nomination signatures and as a result did not secure the necessary 10,000 certified signatures to appear on the ballot.
Shawn Oliver, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, and Democratic Party Director Adam Roof filed complaints against Manning Martin. The complaints were consolidated and considered as one. Roof also filed a complaint against Walsh.
The commission ruled the complainants met the burden of proof and sustained their challenges to 1,279 of the Manning Martin’s 10,677 submitted nomination signatures. Similarly, the commission upheld challenges to 1,021 of the 10,677 signatures submitted by Walsh.
The commission said the candidates as a result do not have the sufficient 10,000 signatures to appear on the Sept. 1 Republican primary ballot, and ordered Secretary of State William Galvin not to print their names on this year’s primary ballots
The commission’s decision can be appealed to the Superior Court the deadline to appeal is Wednesday July 1, according to Deb O’Malley, a spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin.
If the rulings hold, it would mean that Republicans this year will not have candidates on the ballot in the attorney general, secretary of state and state auditor races. Also, Oliver, who was introduced as Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Shortsleeve’s running mate in late March, will be the lone GOP candidate for lieutenant governor. Shortsleeve and Mike Minogue are the GOP candidates for governor.
Walsh Decision
On June 18, Walsh filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County seeking immediate judicial relief to a single justice. Walsh’s filing is under advisement, according to the SJC’s website.
Candidate for attorney general Mike Walsh speaks at the MassGOP convention at the DCU Center in Worcester on April 25, 2026.
Walsh told the News Service he also plans to appeal the commission’s decision, saying the process “has been more than a little one sided.”
“We look forward to proceeding in court next week. I won’t say that the process is rigged, but it certainly has been one sided. In the courts we will find a fair an even playing field where the ‘substantial weight of the evidence’ cannot be ignored,” Walsh said in response to a News Service request for comment.
Manning Martin, who was introduced this year as the running mate of Mike Kennealy, whose campaign was derailed by delegates at the party’s April convention, also said she plans to appeal the decision.
“The appeal will provide an opportunity for the evidence and the law to receive the center stage they deserve rather than blatant political agendas,” Manning Martin said in a message to the News Service.
Walsh at the MassGOP Convention, 2026
The objectors celebrated the commission’s decision.
“This case was one of the largest, if not the largest, cases of voter fraud in Massachusetts history,” Oliver attorney Dan Winslow, a former judge and Republican state representative, told the News Service, reiterating a point that he and the Democratic Party attorney John Corrigan made during the hearings. “I am proud to represent a candidate who stood tall for election integrity.”
Roof said the issue wasn’t a just a “paperwork error” but a “deliberate attempt to game the system.”
Manning Martin at the MassGOP Convention, 2026
Manning Martin Decision
“If you break the rules to get on the ballot, you can’t be trusted to serve. No candidate is above the rules,” he said in a statement. “The thousands of residents whose names were fraudulently used, many of whom may not even know it happened, received justice with today’s decision. While the system worked today, it should never have been tested.”
Prior to the ruling, 20 Republican State Committee members circulated documents from the Manning Martin case, emphasizing a motion to consolidate the complaints filed by Roof on behalf of Democrats and the Oliver Committee.
“It demonstrates the willing coordination and collusion with the Massachusetts Democratic Party on the part of the Committee to Elect Shawn Oliver (and by extension Committee to Elect Brian Shortsleeve) to object to the nomination of Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor Anne Manning Martin,” the email said. “This decision by the Oliver committee to work with the Democrats to damage the campaign of a Republican candidate is a violation of our bylaws and betrayal of our values.”
The email, obtained by the News Service from Republican National Committeeman Brad Wyatt, concluded that the committee members who signed it “condemn the actions of the Oliver and Shortsleeve committee and anyone acting on their behalf in this action in the strongest terms.”
The signatories included Wyatt, National Committeewoman Janet Fogarty and 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee Geoff Diehl.
Oliver’s campaign responded to the ruling late Friday in a statement to the News Service.
“The Ballot Commission reviewed the mountain of evidence and arrived at the only possible conclusion. Now it is time for Republicans and independents to get behind the only unified Republican ticket for Governor and Lieutenant Governor and set our sights on defeating Maura Healey and Kim Driscoll to make Massachusetts affordable for working families,” the Oliver campaign said.
Roof 6/25/26 Response to Walsh’s motion
The commission spent hours this week hearing testimony. Arguments presented in Walsh’s case largely focused on findings from Jennifer Naso, a forensic document examiner who reviewed dozens of the candidate’s nomination papers. Walsh’s attorneys sought to dismiss the complaint because, they said, the Democratic Party didn’t meet administrative filing and notice requirements.
The commission said that it reviewed the same nomination papers and handwriting samples as Naso as well as her report on her findings. The commission agreed with her conclusions that most of 780 signatures filed for Walsh from Weymouth and 241 signatures from Scituate were written by the same person or nomination papers were filled out by multiple people and those signatures were “non-genuine.”
GOP candidate for lieutenant governor Anne Manning-Martin speaks at the MassGOP convention in the DCU Center in Worcester on April 25, 2026.
In Manning Martin’s case, a major piece of the argument against the candidate was that hired signature gatherer Joe Bronske, who was also hired by Walsh, had retrieved a list of voters from a database that the Republican Party manages and used those names to forge signatures. Manning Martin’s attorney, Mary Ellen Manning, contended that the list itself was not properly presented as evidence and did not meet “evidentiary standards” because it could have been edited by multiple people.
Manning also presented ill-fated motions seeking to dismiss the case. One was based on the fact that Corrigan had not presented any of his own evidence or witnesses. Manning also argued the case should be dismissed because they did not present any “substantial evidence” like voters whose signatures were allegedly forged.
Walsh Motion to SJC 6/18
The commission found that 657 of Manning Martin’s certified signatures from Weymouth appeared in the exact same order as they did on both nomination papers for Walsh and the voter list. Manning Martin’s team testified that it’s not unusual for voters to sign for multiple candidates in the same order. The commission said it agreed with testimony from Harold Hubschman, president and founder of signaturedrive.com, who, according to the decision, said it was “virtually impossible to collect over 600 signatures on each of two petitions over the course of the many days it would take to collect these signatures, where every voter who signed one candidate’s petition would also sign the other candidate’s petition, in the exact order, without deviation.”
The commission in its overall rulings, which ran 21 and 37 pages, respectively, also denied both Manning Martin’s and Walsh’s motions to dismiss the case based on the administrative requirements.
Bronske was noticeably absent from the hearings. Winslow said that Bronske was deposed and invoked his Fifth Amendment right in response to all questions surrounding whether he forged signatures and copied from a Republican voter list. Bronske said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right if he were called to testify, according to Winslow.
In its decision, the commission said that given Bronske was likely the signature gatherer for the challenged signatures it would take an “adverse inference” against him as a result of his refusal to answer questions.
“Taking the 5th demonstrates to the Commission that Mr. Bronske has something to hide,” the commission said in its decision.
Katie Castellani is a reporter for State House News Service and State Affairs Pro reach her at kcastellani@statehousenews.com.
