Large Scale Election Fraud in Maine Caucuses

The other day, I woke up and checked the final results from the Maine Caucus that went on the night (and entire week) before. I'm afraid what I found was what looks like the most blatant case of election fraud I have ever witnessed. I'm going to summarize what happened as best as I understand it at this point, who is responsible, who was cheated out of their vote and what they can do about it.

Big story: 140 Towns Unaccounted For? Maine GOP Chair Charlie Webster Calls the Win Anyway. When he receives push-back from the media and local officials, he sticks to his guns saying they will discuss it in March (after Super Tuesday of course) to decide if they will include the neglected votes.

Side story: Totals reported found to be incorrect on multiple occasions as reported by Caucus leaders, either due to addition errors, or just plain wrong information. See breakdown below.

Side side story: Some officials in Maine are speaking up. Washington County commissioner Chris Gardner is pushing the GOP to count the votes there. State Senate President Raye is demanding the votes be counted. Charlie Webster is insisting they will not count toward the official total.

Update: 2/18/2012
The GOP in Maine has released a new set of results. I've compiled a spreadsheet to more easily compare the results: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3169366/Maine_Results_Comparison.xlsx

County by County Problems List

• Androscoggin
• No problems I'm aware of
• Aroostook
• Results not broken down by town so we have no way of knowing if some towns were not counted like in the other counties. Aroostook was the only county Ron Paul won in 2008. He won again this year but we cannot verify that there were not towns missing without the results broken down as they should be.
• Cumberland
• Baldwin, Casco, Frye Island, Long Island, Pownal (25 votes total in 08), Sebago - zero votes reported by GOP
• Portland - According to an article published by the Washington Post, a caucus in Portland Maine mysteriously ended up with 19 more ballots in the stack than they should have had. So what did they do? Vote again? Tally what they had? Try to figure out which 19 ballots were bogus? No. They voided the entire caucus. Sounds like someone can slip in some extra ballots and get an entire caucus voided?
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/maine-caucuses-provide-a-window-into-ron-paul-delegate-strategy/2012/02/12/gIQARNbC9Q_blog.html
• Franklin
• Avon (2 votes in '08), Carthage (2 votes in '08), Coplin, Dallas, Eustis, Madrid, Phillips (2 votes in '08), Rangeley, Sandy River, Wilton (10 votes in '08) - zero votes reported by GOP
• Hancock
• Amherst, Aurora (6 votes in '08), Castine, Cranberry Isles, Eastbrook (2 votes in '08), Franklin, Frenchboro, Gouldsboro, Great Pond, Hancock (19 votes in '08), Lamoine, Mariaville, Osborn, Sorrento (5 votes in '08), Stonington (3 votes in '08), Sullivan, "T3 ND Part of"?, Waltham, Winter Harbor - zero votes reported by GOP
• Apparently 10 towns in Hancock were also postponed just like they were in Washington County. Hancock county as a whole received 263 votes in 2008. There are already 315 votes in Hancock being reported indicating a much higher turnout in the county this year.
• Kennebec
• Clinton, Rome (3 votes in '08), Vienna (1 vote in '08), Waterville (53 votes in '08), Wayne - zero votes reported by GOP
• Waterville - +16 votes for Paul? - From a facebook comment on a Bangor Daily News article: " We were robbed of votes in waterville also! Doctor won the place by 16 votes but maine resiults shows 0! Now you guys be the judge and decide whether there was proven voter fraud in GOP Maine!"
• China - Official vote total was Romney - 6, Paul - 11, 1 - Santorum, 0 - Gingrich, 0 - Other. WatchTheVote.com totals had a different result:  Romney - 3, Paul - 13, Santorum - 1, Gingrich - 1, TOTAL: 18 (Source)
• Knox
• Isle Au Haut, Matinicus Isle, North Haven - zero votes reported by GOP
• Was this the town with a delayed caucus or was that hancock?
• Loncoln
• Boothbay (18 votes in '08) - two line items on GOP sheet, one is all zeros. Were there two caucuses in boothbay or was this just a typo?
• South Bristol (14 votes in '08), Whitefield (6 votes in '08) - zero  votes reported by GOP
• Oxford
• Albany (7 votes in '08), Byron, Gilead (2 votes in '08), Lincoln, Magalloway, Milton (2 votes in '08), Newry (3 votes in '08), Otisfield (15 votes in '08), Stoneham, Stow, Sumner, Sweden, Upton - zero votes reported by GOP
• Penobscot
• Alton (2 votes in '08) - Total is wrong. Two votes for paul, one vote for 'other' but a big fat zero in the total column.
• Bangor - Again Paul bests romney by 10 votes, but the totals column is zero.
• Burlington, Carroll, Corinth, Drew Plantation, Edinburg, Enfield, Kenduskeag, Kingman, Lakeville, Mattawamkeag, Maxfield, Mount Chase, Passadumkeag, Patten, Penobscot, Plymouth (10 votes in '08), Prentiss, Seboeis, Springfield, Stacyville, Stetson (2 votes in '08), Veazie (10 votes in '08), Webster, Winn, Woodville - zero votes reported by GOP
• Piscataquis
• Abbot (4 votes in '08), Greenville (3 votes in '08), Kingsbury, Lake View, Shirley, Wellington (1 in '08), Willimantic (2 in '08) - zero votes reported by GOP
• Sagadahoc
• No problems I've heard of
• Somerset
• Anson (4 votes in '08), Brighton, Caratunk, Cornville (2 votes in '08), Dennistown (3 in '08), Detroit (1 in '08), Highland (1 in '08), Jackman (1 in '08), Mercer (2 in '08 both for RP), Moscow (1 in '08), New Portland (2 in '08 both for RP), Moose River (1 in '08), Pleasant Ridge (1 in '08), Rockwood Strip, Starks (4 in '08, 3 for RP), The Forks, West Forks
• Waldo
• Belfast - +7, +9 or +21 votes for Paul (I've seen this in 3 places with different numbers) - votes from Belfast (largest caucus including 22 towns) . Ron Paul won with 71 votes according to Matt McDonald, the Chairman of the Belfast Caucus. He called the State office and their numbers had Romney winning. By the way, the votes in the Belfast caucus were read publicly.
• Belfast (37 in '08), Belmont (3 in '08), Brooks (5 in '08), Burnham, Freedom, Islesboro, Jackson (2 in '08), Knox (11 in '08), Liberty (11 in '08), Lincolnville (7 in '08), Monroe (6 in '08), Morrill (4 in '08), Prospect (2 in 08), Searsmont, Searsport (8 in '08, 5 for RP), Swanville (4 in '08), Thorndike, Troy (5 in '08 3 for RP), Waldo (3 in '08), Winterport (14 in '08) - zero votes reported by GOP
• Washington
• Washington was postponed due to imminent snow. Turns out the snow storm was miniscule, dropping only a dusting on Washington county, but nevertheless the Caucus totals should still be counted toward the winner right? Wrong. Charlie Webster refuses to allow the final tally in Washington county to count toward the official "winner" of the nonbinding straw vote that has been already been called for Mitt Romney.
• York
• Acton (14 in '08) - zero votes reported by GOP

I will be updating this article as more info comes in. Feel free to point me in the direction of any additional info you may have on discrepancies in the figures.

Sources:
Official Vote Breakdown from Maine GOP - http://www.mainegop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/me_gop_caucus_results.pdf
Vote Breakdown from 2008 - http://mysite.verizon.net/mark.j.ellis/Caucus%20Tally%20Report.pdf