Ellsworth reported that it was missing 250 absentee ballots on the same day a Newburgh woman said she found the same amount in her Amazon package, Maine’s top elections official told reporters Monday.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who is running for governor, did not specifically say the ballots found were those that were missing from Ellsworth as that is still part of an ongoing criminal investigation involving police from her department as well as the FBI and other agencies.
Bellows also said the criminal investigation has expanded after a private out of state organization reached out to her office Friday evening to report they appeared to be in possession of Maine absentee ballot return envelopes. She also intimated that the events could have been deliberate.
“This year, it seems that there may have been attempts to interrupt the distribution of ballots and ballot materials, but we are stronger and better than anyone who tries to do our process harm,” she said at a State House news conference.
Bellows did not elaborate on that in carefully worded remarks to the press. It was the first concrete set of facts laid out by state officials after The Maine Wire, the conservative media arm of the Maine Policy Institute, first published claims last week that authentic Maine ballots had been delivered to a Newburgh woman. She refused to speak with the Bangor Daily News.
After the Wire reported the claims, Maine Republican leaders were quick to question the integrity of the state’s election system and called for a federal inquiry before authorities had determined the facts of the strange allegation. The episode comes just a month before Maine voters are set to weigh in on whether or not photo ID should be required to vote.
After Ellsworth election officials discovered they were missing ballots, they immediately reached out to the secretary of state’s office, Bellows said. In Newburgh, no one contacted her office after the discovery of ballots until Wednesday morning, Bellows said.
The secretary of state ignored questions from Steve Robinson, the editor of The Maine Wire, as well as another staffer of the site, saying she would not speak with “bloggers or legislators.” She emphasized that even though the ballots were clearly handled outside the proper chain of custody, Maine has rigorous “checks and balances,” she said.
Ballots are printed by a Maine print shop and are sealed and marked clearly as ballots, she said. Then, they are shipped from the printer to municipalities via the U.S. Postal Service or UPS. When the ballots are delivered, they must be signed for and the given municipality has to send back to her office a ballot receipt certifying they got the ballots needed, Bellows said.
When it comes to absentee voting, there is a return envelope for every individual who requests a ballot and that ballot must be sealed and the envelope signed by the voter to be counted, Bellows said. The counting of absentee ballots is also done in public view ahead of election day where observers from either major political party can inspect and object to certain ballots. If any ballot is returned that doesn’t conform to standards, that ballot is discarded and not counted.
Bellows has drawn ire from Republicans since her 2023 move to disqualify President Donald Trump from Maine’s primary ballot, which was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Several figures in the party have used the Newburgh episode to argue in favor of Question 1, including Rep. Laurel Libby of Auburn, who is leading the voter ID campaign.
“I’m not happy with the explanation that [Bellows] gave today, and I don’t think the Maine people should be either,” Libby said.