Maine’s Office of the Secretary of State (SoS) has not yet released its list of ballot drop-box locations, over a week after Maine’s Republican primary was opened for early voting.
For Republicans, this is yet another lapse from Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a former far left activist and Democratic State Senator, that has undermined and interfered with the Maine GOP primary.
“If the roles were reversed, and it was a Republican doing all this to Democrats, there would be a complete uproar on the left, and in the media, about the specter and even the appearance of voter suppression” said Republican Senate Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostok) in a comment to The Maine Wire.
The Maine Wire reached out to Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ office with a Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request, asking for the locations of mail-in ballot drop-boxes throughout the state.
The SoS office responded to the request by sending a link to a place on the state’s website where the locations of the ballot boxes will be available in “the next week or so.”
If the locations are published exactly a week from the correspondence, they will not be available until February 22.
The “no-excuse” absentee ballot period for the Republican primary began on February 5, and ends on February 29.
That means Republicans wondering where to bring absentee ballots cannot rely on the Secretary of State, whose primary job is administering elections, to inform them where they may drop off a ballot.
The failure to have dropbox locations listed in time for the Republican primary election follows reports from town offices in Winter Harbor, Hartland, and others that Bellows’ office was delayed in mailing ballots.
House Republican Leader Billy Bob Failkingham (R-Winter Harbor) told the Maine Wire that when he went to his town office to retrieve an absentee ballot, he was unable to do so because they had not arrived.
Although Bellows office hasn’t commented on the delays impacting the Republican primary election, her office has been preoccupied since last year with constitutionally suspect efforts to block former Republican President Donald J. Trump from appearing on Maine’s ballots this year.
Maine GOP officials have encouraged early voting so that Republicans can cast their votes while the U.S. Supreme Court decides on a Colorado case that will impact the enforceability of Bellows’ unprecedented move.
But while the start date for Maine’s GOP primary was approaching, Bellows was busy making dozens of appearances on MSNBC, CNN, public broadcasting shows, and otherwise chasing the national media spotlight.
[RELATED: The Audacity of Shenna Bellows…]
Failing to publish the drop-box locations until well into the Republican early voting period could conceivably hinder Republicans attempting to vote early and discourage them from attempting to do so in the general election this fall.
The Maine Wire responded to the SoS office’s email, asking whether the delay in publishing the drop-box locations was part of Bellows’ attempts to bar Trump from appearing on Maine’s ballot.
“Posting the list of absentee ballot drop box locations in one document is a convenience we provide to voters and we’re posting it at the same time we do every election,” said Emily Cook, an employee of the SoS office.
Cook did not provide any explanation for why, if the office does release the list at the same time every election, it waits until weeks after the primary elections open.
The Maine Wire has also filed a Freedom of Access Act request seeking Bellows communications with MSNBC, CNN, and other Democratic activists.
As of Thursday, it has been 46 days since that request was submitted, yet Bellows has not turned over the records.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="25670 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=25670">8 Comments
Thank you Seamus! I’m glad you guys are staying on top of this absolute bullshit!
The dems are working to take over the country thru nefarious means with the aid of the MSM.
Excuse me for asking but if Democrat officials know the location of these “drop boxes” but Republican citizens don’t know, and if this is the norm for Maine, wouldn’t that cast some doubt on ballots collected from these locations before voters have been told where to drop off their ballots, not just this year but in previous years as well? Or am I misreading this article?
Maybe she is giving the ballot stuffers a head start to get them filled before the citizen monitors get a chance to be deployed.
Republicans stand no chance in Maine. The far-left out maneuvers them at every turn. The GOP can go online and make statements, but they have no teeth. The left is flooding the State with immigrants, messing with your voting rights, and forcing you to pay for it through taxes.
On top of that Maine has passed bills that would make California, Oregon, and Colorado envious. The bottom line is that Mainers are pussies.
The only thing; “unprecedented and tragic”, is that there is a political party openly and blatently excercising a coup against America and no one has hauled them off to jail yet.
Bellows and her husband are both living off the state government teat. She is nothing but a wannabe career politician and even majored in it in college. It’s nice to see reporting from an independent news media outlet in Maine that’s not owned by Soros.
More of the blatant abuse of power by the reprehensible excuse for a human, Bellows. When will the illegal actions of an out of control mob of communists in the Mills regime be too much and the citizens fight back? Don’t sit at home get out and vote, vote these fake democrats out, they aren’t the democrats of 30 yrs ago, they are the communists of tomorrow!