A box containing 250 blank Maine voter ballots was mistakenly delivered to a woman’s home in an Amazon package this week, raising questions about election security and casting a shadow over Secretary of State Shanna Bellows’ newly launched campaign for governor.
The story, first reported Wednesday by the Maine Wire, put Bellows on the defensive as she was rolling out her campaign message on protecting voter data and modernizing state services. When asked about the ballots by this reporter Thursday morning, Bellows declined to comment and abruptly walked away.
The Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce held a Business Breakfast Speaker event at the Best Western Event Center in Waterville on Thursday morning. Bellows also left early without explanation, after her presentation, while other candidates remained to take questions and speak with attendees.
Bellows delivered her remarks on being “a fighter” who will stand up for democracy and deliver bipartisan results.
“I stand up for what’s right even when it’s hard and I will stand up just as I’m doing right now to protect your voter data for our democracy and for our way of life and communities,” she told members of the chamber before quickly departing the event.
She highlighted her record working across the aisle in the Legislature to modernize elections, motor vehicles, and state archives, including a unanimous election security bill passed this spring. Bellows also pointed to her business record, citing a 100% rating from the Maine Realtors Association when she was in the state senate, and identified property taxes as a top issue facing voters.
But the ballot controversy dominated the political conversation. When asked about the discovery of the ballots in question and voter integrity, Democratic candidates Angus King III and Hannah Pingree responded briefly, saying only that “voter integrity is important.” Democrat candidate Jason Cherry stated in an email reply ” We need to know what happened immediately as the November election is just a month away. Are these forgeries or real ballots for Maine? If they are forgeries why would someone want to send them to a private resident? If there are the actual ballots then the incident is a great motivator to move away from mail-in ballots to a system of online voting with facial recognition software and checks as used by the federal government ID.me.”
Republican candidates were more pointed. Ben Midgley said voters “deserve to know exactly how 250 blank ballots ended up in a cardboard box at someone’s front door.” James Libby called the incident “a chain of custody failure of the highest order,” while David Jones said it “undermines confidence in the entire system.” Kenneth Capron demanded a full accounting of how the ballots were transported, and Bobby Charles urged “an independent investigation, not just the secretary’s word.” Robert Wessels added that “Mainers deserve transparency, not silence from the top election official.”
The discovery and Bellows’ refusal to address it directly threaten to complicate her campaign message of strengthening voter protections, adding urgency to Maine’s debate over election security.
