The pool of ballots that swung key Maine elections, explained

An outright majority in one of Maine’s legislative chambers came down to a small pool of heavily Democratic votes whose tallies were not released until the day after Tuesday’s election.
These votes from active-duty military members and overseas citizens have swung Maine races before. But they have never been as scrutinized as this year, when they helped Democrats win a narrow majority in the state House of Representatives and gave U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd District some breathing room en route to a fourth term.
That is mostly because the state’s elections were so close. Here’s what you need to know about the system.
Golden’s race in a conservative-leaning district was a virtual tie until the military and overseas vote totals were released on Wednesday by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ office, breaking 80 percent for the Democratic incumbent over state Rep. Austin Theriault, R-Fort Kent.
This method of voting was expanded under a 2009 law that requires states to send absentee ballots to those who request them no later than 45 days before an election. In the presidential election since then, Democrats have dominated this relatively small pool of voters.
Nearly 5,800 Maine votes were cast by overseas and military voters in 2020, which was 2,000 more than those cast this year. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in each of the last three elections, topped out at 16 percent support among this group in 2016. He targeted overseas voting with false claims relating to election fraud this year.
Military voters lean heavily Republican, but overseas citizens are generally Democrats. The latter category made up 79 percent of Maine’s group of these voters in the 2020 election, which was fifth-highest share in the country, according to an Election Assistance Commission report.
Under federal law, these overseas ballots are sent digitally or by mail to the Bellows’ office, which counted them on Election Day. These votes are reported by election instead of by town in part because military and overseas voters could be easily identified in small towns, said Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn, who oversees elections for the office.
They were not released until Wednesday, after virtually all cities and towns had reported their results to media outlets who tally them in real time. That led the Bangor Daily News and Decision Desk HQ to declare Golden the winner. Theriault requested a recount on Thursday, but it is impossible for him to close the 2,000-vote gap unless major issues are discovered.
His victory may not ultimately hinge on this. But these votes affected the outcomes of at least three elections. Rep. Sally Cluchey, D-Bowdoinham, was down by seven votes until she netted 23 from military and overseas voters. A House race tied in Sanford due to five such votes.
In the Farmington area, Democrat Stephen Bunker netted 17 votes and won by 10. It was a trying process for his opponent, Republican Randall Gauvin, who said that he believed that he had both won and lost several times after results started streaming in.
“It was frustrating on my end because this campaign, something I expected to be over on Tuesday, was still dragging on,” he said.
Domestic discussions around voting usually center on residency. But voting is actually tied to citizenship. Americans living abroad are allowed to vote in the municipality and state in which they were last domiciled. Maine is among a majority of states that allow citizens who have never lived in the U.S. to vote where their parent was last domiciled.
State Auditor Matt Dunlap, a former Democratic secretary of state, said he was contacted in the 2000s on the day before an election by former state Rep. Bonnie Green, who was teaching English in Pakistan and did not receive the ballot that she requested in the mail.
He came up with a solution: that she travel to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to use a secure fax machine to send it in. But Dunlap said she was “150 miles up a goat path” and could not get there, so she sat out the election. The 2009 law that expanded overseas voting also allowed for online ballots that are sent back to states that can then generate a paper record.
“It’s a pretty simple process,” Dunlap said.