Independent presidential candidate Cornel West has secured enough valid signatures to appear on Maine’s ballot in November.

Tuesday’s ruling from Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows was in a response to a challenge of West’s petitions.

Bellows found some signatures were gathered fraudulently and rejected petition forms with those signatures. But she found a sufficient number of valid signatures submitted by the campaign  for West to appear on the ballot.

“The bad actions of one should not impugn the valid First Amendment rights of the many,” Bellows said in a news release.

West filed signatures by the Aug. 1 deadline to get his name on the Nov. 5 presidential ballot.

West is a former Green Party candidate now running as an independent. Because he is unaffiliated with a major political party, he had to turn in 4,000 valid signatures to get his name on the Maine ballot.

Two challenges – brought by Nathan Berger of Portland and from Anne Gass of Gray and Sandra Marquis of Lewiston – were brought against West’s petitions.

Challengers also presented evidence of errors by election officials in their certification of signatures.

“While other states across the country may direct election officials to exclude voters from duly participating in our elections processes on the basis of scrivener’s quibbles, Maine does not,” Bellows said. “Our election laws are grounded in encouraging full and fair voter participation, and the registrars acted appropriately in certifying signatures for voters that they could verify regardless of whether a voter signed with a nickname or dated the petition with the day and month only.”

Bellows’ decision can be appealed at Superior Court within five days of Aug. 20.