The Maine Democratic Party has withdrawn its complaint against the Maine Republican Party regarding an independent expenditure made on behalf of their executive director, Julie O’Brien, who is running for the Maine House.

They brought the complaint before the Ethics Commission earlier this week, alleging a conflict of interest.

The commission meeting that had been scheduled for Friday morning to hear the matter has been cancelled.

House Republican Leader Josh Tardy (R-Newport) said that O’Brien was not involved in making the expenditure for her race – or any of the House races.

Tardy said the case was dropped after the two parties met. “We were pretty confident that there was nothing unethical or improper about the manner the Republican Party made the expenditure,” he said.

O’Brien (R-Augusta) is running in an open seat against Anna Blodgett (D-Augusta), in a race Tardy said is typical of those that the party makes independent expenditures in.

Rebecca Pollard, spokeswoman for the Maine Democratic Party, said in an e-mail that the party was satisfied with documentation provided by the Republican Party which proved that there was no coordination in regards to the independent expenditure.

"We also figured there's not much to gain here, with only four days to go until the election," Pollard said. "Our staff has better, more important things to do to get voters to the polls on Tuesday than spend time on a hearing for a matter such as this."