Blank ballots delay Maine House count

Paul LePage will represent Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, but the office of Secretary of State Shenna Bellows will not officially certify his victory until a second round of vote counting is completed. The delay stems from a technicality in Maine’s ranked-choice voting law that requires a candidate to secure 50 percent of the vote plus one to win outright.

LePage finished the initial count with 170,263 votes, representing 49.89 percent of the total. His main opponent, Democratic State Auditor Matt Dunlap, received 164,845 votes, or 48.3 percent. A write-in candidate, Gregory Ward, collected 123 votes. The race was not decided by the spread between LePage and Dunlap, but by 6,017 ballots that had no first-choice selection.

Under Maine law, voters may skip the first round of ranked-choice voting while still making selections in later rounds. Because LePage did not reach the absolute majority threshold in the first round, Bellows’ office must proceed with a runoff tabulation. Bellows stated that the statute compels her office to continue the process even if the candidates prefer to stop.

LePage declared victory on Wednesday afternoon. Dunlap conceded on Thursday after the secretary of state’s office released the preliminary totals. LePage’s campaign advisor, Brent Littlefield, noted that his team had already identified the potential trigger for a second count. Littlefield said the campaign remains confident LePage is the Congressman-Elect based on discussions with local town clerks and the public numbers.

This outcome mirrors a 2024 contest between Jared Golden and Austin Theriault, where more than 12,000 blank ballots forced a similar review. In that instance, both candidates urged the office to skip the second round, but Bellows’ office proceeded after consulting the attorney general. A bill proposed by Republican State Rep. David Boyer to change how blank ballots are counted died in committee last year.

The tabulation process will begin on Monday. Law enforcement officers are currently collecting physical ballots from towns that count by hand and retrieving memory devices from electronic scanners. These materials will be transported to Augusta for verification by secretary of state staff.

The June primary tabulation for the same district took 10 days and cost slightly more than $219,000. That figure included staff time, space rental, and vendor support for three separate races. Bellows expects this year’s process to take about a week, aided by 73 towns that have added electronic tabulators since June. She said staff are not expected to work outside regular business hours.

Bellows emphasized that accuracy is the priority over speed. The office will not predict a specific end date until the verification is complete. The final results will confirm whether LePage holds a majority after the second round, a mathematical near certainty given the small number of blank ballots remaining.