Maine elections chief who drew Trump’s ire narrates House tabulations in livestream

AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine’s elections chief, a former civil liberties attorney who sparred with newly elected President Donald Trump over access to ballots, acts like a sportscaster as she describes the state’s process for determining a congressional winner through ranked choice voting.

Shenna Bellows spends the week live streaming the effort on YouTube and answering questions in real time.

“We hope that when people see it for themselves, they will believe that our elections have integrity, that they are free and fair. And then maybe they will have a little more confidence in the election officials who are working so hard to make this election happen,” Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told the Associated Press.

Democratic Rep. Jared Golden led Republican challenger Austin Theriault by about 2,000 first-place votes after nearly 400,000 votes were cast in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, but neither received more than 49%, so the ranked choice process will reallocate other votes to determine a majority, her office announced.

The race between Golden and Theriault has been played out, which both parties are having difficulty with control of the US House of Representatives. The Associated Press did not declare a winner.

Bellows, who took office in 2021, is a former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, which drew the ire of Republicans when it ruled that Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection making him ineligible to appear about the Republican Party primaries. Trump did indeed emerge and win, after the US Supreme Court intervened. Bellows was doxed and beaten then her address and other personal information were posted online and a fake emergency call sent officers to her home.

Lawyers for both candidates, campaign officials, journalists and police watched Tuesday as election workers opened the polls in the building that houses the Maine State Police headquarters. Viewers could watch from two different angles, and Bellows occasionally pointed an iPad camera at the observers or her staff to explain what was happening.

Bellows described the chain of custody: Election workers in each municipality secure the ballots in padlocked blue boxes, sealed with secret codes, secured with padlocks and escorted by law enforcement to a “secret location” constantly monitored by officers and security cameras.

She also spoke about digital security: she described the make, model and purpose of each machine and explained steps to prevent tampering by cybercriminals or other malicious actors. None of the machines are connected to the internet, so they can’t be hacked in any way, and logic tests could catch any data mismatch, she said.

After the locked blue ballot boxes were wheeled into the room by a team that included an armed detective, she invited lawyers for both campaigns to handle the tapes and confirm that the voting machine printouts matched Election Night numbers.

Theriault’s campaign manager gave his approval on Tuesday after consulting with Bellows several times.

“They had the lawyers from both sides look at the rooms where the ballots were stored. I think it’s a very open process,” Shawn Roderick told reporters in the hallway outside.

Election officials across the country have been plagued by attempts to cast doubt on the results. Many of them are ill-informed and fueled by deliberate efforts to undermine American democracy.

The mundane process of tabulating votes then became a spectacle The hanging chad controversy in Florida led to the “Brooks Brothers Riot” of GOP staffers who tried to stop the count in 2000. Scratchy CCTV videos in Atlanta sparked insatiable interest in 2020 count after Trump turned ally Rudy Giuliani falsely accused election workers in Fulton County of filling ballot boxes.

Those doubts persist even though Georgian Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger subsequently gave press conferences and insisted that the results, confirmed by multiple recounts, were valid.

Bellows, on the other hand, anticipates and answers questions in real time. Promoting transparency is a wise response to distrust in institutions and Republican criticism of ranked-choice voting, especially over its vote on Trump, said Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine.

“I think it’s a smart move on her part,” Brewer said.

Ranked-choice voting, which Maine voters adopted in 2016, is being used in many local races few states have accepted it.

This race had only one valid alternative to the top two: Diana Merenda, a retiree who formally ran to show her opposition to the war in Gaza. She collected 400 votes. More than 12,000 other ballots did not have a first choice and must be checked for second choices before being discarded.

“Keep in mind that what we do first is verify the initial totals and then run the ranked voting tabulation so that second choices for people who did not choose Golden or Theriault will count in the count, and as a result we will know , between those two, who have 50%,” Bellows said during the livestream.

There have been problems: they needed bolt cutters to open a padlock where the key was lost. Bellows announced this with a wide grin, as if celebrating how every voter’s choices have been protected. Then she turned to a detailed explanation of how memory sticks work.

After this week’s final tabulation, election workers will begin the formal recount requested by Theriault, with the goal of delivering final results before the Nov. 25 certification deadline.

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Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.