Final week, the Maine Wire reported {that a} Newburgh, Maine, resident obtained – together with family items – a bundle of 250 mail-in ballots for an upcoming referendum race in November that may entrust voters with two main points: elections and gun rights.
The election query offers with voter ID necessities, the variety of days for early and absentee voting, and poll drop field places, amongst different issues. The gun regulation query pertains to ‘red-flag’ gun legal guidelines, permitting the confiscation of weapons based mostly on an interpretation of a citizen’s psychological state.
Maine state authorities have now opened an investigation into the ‘misplaced’ ballots and are working with america Postal Service to assemble extra info.
USAToday reported:
Officers in Ellsworth, a coastal Maine metropolis, reported to the state final week that 250 absentee ballots had been lacking in a supply, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows mentioned throughout an Oct. 6 information convention. The report got here on the identical day an unnamed lady in Newburgh, a small city about 41 miles northwest of Ellsworth, claimed that she discovered bundled, unmarked ballots inside her Amazon bundle.
The “suspicious occasions” are being investigated by the secretary of state’s regulation enforcement division together with the Maine Legal professional Normal’s Workplace, Maine State Police, and federal regulation enforcement companions, together with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Postal Inspection Service, in accordance with Bellows. She declined to offer particular particulars on the incident, citing the continuing investigation.
FOX Information additionally reported that the city of Ellsworth reported the ballots lacking the day the lady obtained them, however neither report makes clear whether or not the city knew the ballots had been lacking earlier than the lady reported the bundle.
Based on the USAToday reporting, Secretary Bellows mentioned that the town of Ellsworth obtained two packing containers of absentee ballots on September thirtieth, as anticipated. Nevertheless, one of many packing containers was lacking 5 bundles of ballots.
Maine’s election regulation, §753-B, states:
Upon receipt of an software or written request for an absentee poll that’s accepted pursuant to section 753‑A, and after the official ballots grow to be accessible, the clerk shall instantly subject an absentee poll and return envelope by mail or in individual to the applicant…
Additional, Maine’s Secretary of State website states that, “The poll shall be despatched to you through postal mail and have to be returned to your municipal clerk by 8:00 p.m.+ on Election Day.”
Whereas this case facilities round ballots in bulk being mailed to election places of work and never voters individually, it’s regarding {that a} third-party provider – Amazon on this case – is being entrusted with the delivery of bulk ballots, when the mailing of particular person ballots appears to be entrusted to america Postal Service.
It’s much more regarding that the field seems to have been tampered with and its contents intentionally eliminated and positioned in one other bundle.
An Amazon spokesperson informed ABC Information in a statement:
“We’re cooperating with the regulation enforcement companies investigating this incident. Primarily based on our preliminary findings, it seems that this bundle was tampered with exterior of our achievement and supply community, and never by an Amazon worker or companion,”
Amazon is cooperating with the investigation.
Maine Woman Receives 250 State Election Ballots in Amazon Package Delivery
