Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows addresses a live broadcast as election workers scan ballots Tuesday in Augusta. David Sharp/Associated Press

AUGUSTA — Maine’s elections official, a former civil liberties advocate who clashed with President-elect Donald Trump over ballot access, behaves like a live sports anchor when describing the voting process. state vote. determine a congressional winner through ranked-choice voting.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows will spend the week livestreaming 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’ll have a little more confidence in the election officials who are working so hard to make this election happen,” Bellows told The Associated Press.



Democratic Rep. Jared Golden edged Republican challenger Austin Theriault by about 2,000 votes for first place after nearly 400,000 ballots were cast in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, but none received more than 49%, so the ranked choice process will reallocate other votes to determine a majority. , announced his office.

The race between Golden and Theriault unfolded as both parties battle for control of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Associated Press — which the Press Herald uses for its election ads — has not declared a winner, although Golden declared victory, citing Decision Desk HQ, a website focused on reporting election results.

Bellows, who took office in 2021, is a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine who drew the ire of Republicans when she ruled that Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection made him ineligible for the state’s GOP primary election. Trump actually ran and won after the U.S. Supreme Court intervened.

The bellows was doxxed and crushed after his decision regarding Trump – his address and other personal details were posted online and a fake emergency call sent agents to his home. She and her team have also received hundreds of what she described as “threatening, abusive and aggressive communications.”

On Tuesday, attorneys for both candidates, campaign officials, reporters and police watched as election workers opened ballot boxes inside the building that also houses the Maine State Police headquarters. Viewers could watch from two different angles, and Bellows would sometimes point an iPad camera at observers or his staff to explain what was happening.

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

Locked blue metal boxes containing Aroostook County Election Day materials are seen Tuesday in Augusta during the ranking of ranked-choice votes for the 2nd Congressional District. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

She also talked about digital security, describing the make, model and purpose of each machine and explaining the steps to take to prevent tampering by cybercriminals or other bad actors. None of the machines are connected to the Internet, so there’s no way they could be hacked, and logic tests would detect any data mismatches, she said.

After the locked blue ballot boxes were carried into the room by a team that included an armed detective, she invited attorneys for both campaigns to process the records and confirm that the voting machine printouts matched the election’s evening tallies. election.

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

“They let lawyers from both sides look into 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 upset by efforts to challenge the results, many of which were misinformed and fueled by deliberate attempts to undermine American democracy.

The mundane process of counting votes became a spectacle when the Florida hanging controversy led to the “Brooks Brothers Riot” of Republican staffers who attempted to stop the count in 2000.

CCTV videos in Atlanta fueled insatiable interest in the 2020 count after Trump ally Rudy Giuliani falsely accused Fulton County election workers of stuffing ballot boxes. These doubts persist even though Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, subsequently gave press conferences, insisting on the validity of the results, confirmed by multiple recounts.

In contrast, Bellows anticipates questions and answers them in real time. Promoting transparency is a wise response to distrust of institutions and Republican criticism of ranked-choice voting, particularly because of its decision in the Trump vote, said Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine.

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

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

This race had only one viable alternative to the top two: Diana Merenda, a retiree who officially declared her candidacy in writing to show her opposition to the war in Gaza. She received 400 votes. More than 12,000 other ballots did not have a first choice and must be checked for a second choice before being rejected.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows walks around a laptop to show the livestream audience the in-person audience Tuesday in Augusta during the ranking of ranked-choice votes for the 2nd Congressional District race. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

“Keep in mind that what we do first is check these initial totals and then do the ranking of votes by choice so that second choices for people who did not choose Golden or Theriault are taken taken into account in the count, and therefore we will know, between these two, who has 50%,” Bellows said during the live broadcast.

There were hiccups: they needed bolt cutters to open a padlock whose key was lost. Bellows announced it with a wide smile, as if celebrating how each voter’s choices were protected. She then moved on to a detailed explanation of how USB drives work.

After this week’s final total, 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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