AUGUSTA, Maine -- Nov. 15, 2022 —
The ranked-choice voting tabulation to decide the official winner in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District race between incumbent Democrat Jared Golden and Republican challenger Bruce Poliquin neared its conclusion Tuesday evening, a week after Election Day, but got delayed until Wednesday due a last minute technical snafu.
The process began at 8:30 a.m. in a room, open to the public, inside a Maine Department of Public Safety building, in Augusta, and by 6:00 p.m., the first-round votes of all 11 of the district’s counties had been verified.
Just before the long-awaited second-round allocation was to occur, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows informed the campaigns and reporters on scene that two memory sticks, which had recorded more than 16,000 ballots from Bangor, the district's second-largest city, and nearby Hampden, were corrupt.
Bellows said, "Unfortunately, what has happened is that the cast vote record on those memory sticks couldn’t be read by the system, and if the individual cast vote records for every ballot on that memory stick can’t be read, then it can’t be used in that ranked-choice voting tabulation.”
Golden began the day with 48.25% of the vote, and Poliquin with 44.9%, but Maine law requires one candidate to reach at least 50% of the vote. Independent candidate Tiffany Bond captured 6.75% of the vote; her second-choice votes will be allocated to Golden and Poliquin.
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