Last week, the Maine Wire reported that a Newburgh, Maine, resident received – along with household goods – a bundle of 250 mail-in ballots for an upcoming referendum race in November that will entrust voters with two major issues: elections and gun rights.
The election question deals with voter ID requirements, the number of days for early and absentee voting, and ballot drop box locations, among other things. The gun law question pertains to ‘red-flag’ gun laws, allowing the confiscation of guns based on an interpretation of a citizen’s mental state.
Maine state authorities have now opened an investigation into the ‘misplaced’ ballots and are working with the United States Postal Service to gather more information.
USAToday reported:
Officials in Ellsworth, a coastal Maine city, reported to the state last week that 250 absentee ballots were missing in a delivery, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said during an Oct. 6 news conference. The report came on the same day an unnamed woman in Newburgh, a small town about 41 miles northwest of Ellsworth, claimed that she found bundled, unmarked ballots inside her Amazon package.
The “suspicious events” are being investigated by the secretary of state’s law enforcement division along with the Maine Attorney General’s Office, Maine State Police, and federal law enforcement partners, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Postal Inspection Service, according to Bellows. She declined to provide specific details on the incident, citing the ongoing investigation.
FOX News also reported that the town of Ellsworth reported the ballots missing the day the woman received them, but neither report makes clear whether the town knew the ballots were missing before the woman reported the package.
According to the USAToday reporting, Secretary Bellows said that the city of Ellsworth received two boxes of absentee ballots on September 30th, as expected. However, one of the boxes was missing five bundles of ballots.
Maine’s election law, §753-B, states:
Upon receipt of an application or written request for an absentee ballot that is accepted pursuant to section 753‑A, and after the official ballots become available, the clerk shall immediately issue an absentee ballot and return envelope by mail or in person to the applicant…
Further, Maine’s Secretary of State website states that, “The ballot will be sent to you via postal mail and must be returned to your municipal clerk by 8:00 p.m.+ on Election Day.”
While this case centers around ballots in bulk being mailed to election offices and not voters individually, it is concerning that a third-party carrier – Amazon in this case – is being entrusted with the shipping of bulk ballots, when the mailing of individual ballots seems to be entrusted to the United States Postal Service.
It is even more concerning that the box appears to have been tampered with and its contents deliberately removed and placed in another package.
An Amazon spokesperson told ABC News in a statement:
“We’re cooperating with the law enforcement agencies investigating this incident. Based on our initial findings, it appears that this package was tampered with outside of our fulfillment and delivery network, and not by an Amazon employee or partner,”
Amazon is cooperating with the investigation.
Maine Woman Receives 250 State Election Ballots in Amazon Package Delivery
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