As Secretary of State Shenna Bellows—and her gubernatorial campaign—deals with the fallout from a Newburgh woman discovering 250 (unordered) absentee ballots in her Amazon package, the state’s left-wing media has downplayed the controversy.
[RELATED: Maine Woman Discovers Hundreds of Election Ballots in Amazon Package as State Considers Voter ID…]
The state’s left-leaning media outlets, including the NPR-affiliated Maine Public, the Bangor Daily News, and the Portland Press Herald, all covered the incident after The Maine Wire broke the story on October 1.
Instead of focusing on the significant threat that hundreds of misplaced absentee ballots pose to election integrity, the outlets were quick to claim it was another instance where conservatives “seized” on something to attack political opponents.
“Maine Republican leaders on Wednesday used the Wire article to attack Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who is running to replace term-limited governor Janet Mills and has recently squared off with Republican Donald Trump’s Administration over voter fraud issues,” said the Bangor paper in their initial article on the controversy.
Their article portrayed Republicans as using the controversy to cast doubt on the state’s election integrity in the lead-up to the referendum ballot Question 1, where voters will decide whether to require photo ID for voting and whether to curtail some aspects of absentee voting.
[RELATED: Amid Amazon Prime Ballot Scandal, Shenna Bellows Picks New Election Day Ballot Courier, Ditches UPS…]
The Bangor paper emphasized the situation as a tool used by Republicans, rather than exploring the potential threat to the integrity of Maine’s elections that it represents.
They concluded their article with a description of Question 1 and claimed that instances of voter fraud are actually extremely low in the U.S.
[RELATED: Breaking Down How Question 1 Would Change Election Law in Maine…]
The outlet continued in the same vein in follow-up articles on the situation.
The Portland paper and Maine’s NPR affiliate similarly focused on the Republican reaction, both claiming that conservatives “seized” on the incident.
“Conservatives quickly seized on the alleged incident to attack Bellows — a Democratic candidate for governor next year — and to call for a federal inquiry. It’s the latest Republican attack on Bellows,” said Maine Public in their report.
“The incident was first reported by the Maine Wire, a conservative media outlet affiliated with the Maine Policy Institute, and was quickly seized on by both Republican leaders and supporters of referendum Question 1,” said the Press Herald.
“Republicans have ramped up their scrutiny of Maine elections in recent months, largely to generate support for Question 1,” they added later in the article.
After the story first broke, Bellows held a press conference to announce that federal authorities were investigating the ballot controversy. During the conference, she refused to take questions from Maine Wire Editor-in-Chief Steve Robinson or reporter Jon Fetherston, claiming she would not answer “bloggers or legislators,” despite neither of them being a legislator nor candidate.
Implicit in Bellows’ assertion is the statement that The Maine Wire is not a “credentialed” media organization and, by inference, is illegitimate.
Maine Public ran with Bellows’ comments, citing the Maine Wire, which broke the story that ultimately led Bellows to hold the conference, as a “conservative blog.”
The Portland paper “seized” on another statement from the conference, using its headline to trumpet Bellows’ baseless claim that the 250 ballots wound up in the Newburgh woman’s Amazon order thanks to some mysterious “bad actors,” rather than as a result of her office’s incompetence or a failure in the chain of custody.
Investigations into the ballot handling remain ongoing, and it remains to be seen whether it will have an effect on voter confidence going forward.
