Maine elections chief: "We're investigating'

By Ted Cohen/Patch.com

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows announced Monday that she is doing her best to investigate how 250 election ballots ended up in an Amazon box at a Newburgh, Maine resident's home.

"I cannot discuss the details of the law enforcement investigation," gubernatorial Democrat candidate Bellows told a news conference Monday.

But she tried to assure Maine voters that her office is doing everything it can to figure out how election ballots got delivered recently to an online shopper's house in an Amazon box.

Bellows said that on the same day the Newburgh woman said she received the ballots Ellsworth officials reported that a shipment of 250 ballots was missing.

She refused during her news conference to take questions from The Maine Wire, the news outlet that broke the ballotgate blockbuster.

Moreover, she insisted on repeatedly referring to The Maine Wire as a "blog" instead of as a news company.

Maine allows no-excuse absentee voting, which began Monday for the current election.

The election includes two state-ballot initiatives - one of which would actually reduce the availability of absentee voting.

The system doubles as the state’s form of early voting. Voters can fill out an absentee ballot in person at their municipal office or they can mail them in.

Voters who want to cast an absentee ballot by mail or in person can request a ballot using the state’s online form or making a request at their municipal office.

Bellows, who served in the Maine Senate from 2016 to 2020 was the failed Democrat nominee in the 2014 U.S. Senate election, losing to incumbent then-four-term Republican Susan Collins.

As secretary of state, Bellows gained national attention in 2023 when she ruled that Donald Trump was ineligible for Maine's Republican primary ballot due to his role in the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack, a decision later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In March, the Massachusetts transplant announced her candidacy for the Democrat nomination for Maine governor.

Editor note: The author is a contributor to The Maine Wire.