'Phantom' Ballots in Maine State Senate Recount Reverse Result From Democratic to Republican

[hue]

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10959

11-vote edge given to GOPer after 21 unexplained ballots - all for her - mysteriously appear in tiny Town of Long Island...

An election fraud mystery has emerged in Maine's tiny Town of Long Island. The strange case has not only changed the previously announced "winner" of the election, but the contested results affect the entire state Senate and are now the subject of an investigation demanded by the Maine Democratic Party.

On Election Night this year, Democrat Catherine Breen reportedly won the race for state Senate by a very slim 32 votes in Maine's Senate District 25, according to the then-unofficial tally. However, during a hand recount of the votes last week, 21 previously unaccounted-for ballots were discovered to be in the locked Long Island ballot box. All of the "new" ballots included votes for Cathleen Manchester, the Republican candidate who had requested the recount.

Those 21 "new" ballots were above and beyond the 171 votes counted by hand on Election Night (which proved to be an otherwise perfect count) and the 171 voters listed as having voted on the "voter manifest" at Long Island's only precinct.

The "new" votes, combined with a few other adjustments to the tallies in the 25th District's six other towns, were enough to reverse the results, giving an 11-vote victory to the Republican candidate after the recount, even as neither party is able to explain the appearance of the "phantom ballots" in Long Island...

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

1. between this an endless police brutality what is the point anymore

[arcane1]

2. Surrender? Not a chance! They have to cheat BECAUSE we are winning!

[Igel]

3. What was the breakdown of the "first" 171 votes? n/t

[aspirant]

4. Who's going to jail?

Brad blog link; before Breen(D) 95 after Breen(D) 95

before Manchester(R) 65 after Manchester(R) 86

before blank 11 after blank 11

This is blatant with these puny amount of votes.

[Igel]

5. Tx.

On a side note in NY State I watched the poll workers at one station squirm a bit because their tallies really didn't add up and could never add up.

The explanation was clear, though. One of the poll workers went off on a voter who was of the wrong political persuasion. Stood up, stamped her feet, and yelled at a voter--"How can you vote for a ____________?!" This, of course, was a violation of the code of conduct, but it took maybe 10 minutes for the poll workers to recover from the shock of what she was doing, get her quiet, and get her out of the way.

At the time there were perhaps 10-15 people in line to vote at 2 or 3 machines and perhaps 25 in line to sign in, with a lot of grumbling. When the workers finally got back to their table and managed to restore order to their work area, the lines were considerably shorter and their tally of # of voters and # of votes cast were off by more than 20. Some who signed in didn't vote, some who didn't sign in did vote. They should have immediately locked down the machines, but didn't.

(If the votes that were counted had been all or nearly all (R) in Long Island, Maine, I'd have entertained the idea of this kind of embarrassment happening. Assuming that the ballots counted were a random sample of the votes cast, the odds are against it, though.