Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows talks to reporters while a law enforcement officer wheels in locked ballot boxes from Presque Isle after attorneys requested to review the town’s receipts during the ranked-choice tabulation for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. (Photo by AnnMarie Hilton/ Maine Morning Star)
Maine’s Department of the Secretary of State started the process of running a ranked-choice tabulation for the 2nd Congressional District race Tuesday that is likely to take multiple days to complete.
“This is likely to take the rest of the week,” said Secretary of State Shenna Bellows about an hour into the proceeding, which took place at the Maine State Police headquarters building in Augusta.
Bellows said the tabulation is necessary because neither U.S. Rep. Jared Golden nor his challenger, Republican state Rep. Austin Theriault, earned more than 50% of the vote and second-choice votes could change the current standing, which has the Democratic incumbent ahead by fewer than 2,200 votes.
More than 12,000 voters either selected unofficial write-in candidate Diana Merenda as their first choice or left it blank. The tabulation will look at the second choice on those ballots and assign the votes to Golden or Theriault to determine a winner.
The Secretary of State’s office said Theriault has requested a recount, but it is premature since the ranked-choice tabulation is needed to really determine which candidate is trailing.
First, verify the results
Before state elections staff actually started counting second-choice votes, they needed to verify the results reported by town clerks. Towns that use tabulators put their results on memory devices that staff were able to upload onto computers, while ballots from municipalities that hand count were run through a high-speed tabulator.
However, while those ballots were verified, the entire vote was uploaded so that elections staff could go back and review second choice votes without having to rescan the ballots.
Election staff systematically reviewed materials from each of the 11 counties in the 2nd District, starting with the farthest away geographically: Aroostook County. This order was selected in the event that law enforcement would need to travel back to any towns to gather more materials.
Once those memory sticks were uploaded and hand-count ballots were run through the machine, the staff verified that their results matched what was reported by clerks. That information was also shared with the attorneys present to represent each candidate.
Attorneys also asked to review the receipts created by the tabulators in Presque Isle, specifically. Law enforcement brought in the 17 ballot boxes from Presque Isle so attorneys could see the results from that original counting.
Mike Carey, an attorney from the Golden campaign, also reviewed the log of who had custody of the ballot boxes as law enforcement brought them from each municipality to Augusta.
About two and a half hours into the process, Bellows informed the crowd of about 25 people, including congressional observers from both political parties from the House Administration Committee, that so far the results have matched those originally reported by clerks.
Even though ranked-choice tabulations are arduous and detailed, Bellows said “it verifies the vote and demonstrates to voters the integrity of our processes.”
This is the third time Maine has done a ranked-choice tabulation, Bellows said, each time for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. The first one, in 2018, took five business days, while the second one in 2022 took three and a half.
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