For Mitt Romney, the winning the Maine Caucus this past Saturday became a necessity after losing three battles in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Coming in third in Minnesota, far behind Congressman Ron Paul wasn’t helping his media ordained status as the frontrunner in the 2012 Republican Presidential primaries either. Residents and voters of the state that he had ignored until late this past weekend were likely surprised to see Mitt Romney personally speaking at several caucus locations. It was, however, enough for Mitt Romney to squeak a win past Ron Paul with 39% of the vote to Paul’s 36%–194 votes separating the two. Several key caucus events that the Maine GOP was involved in canceling, misreporting, or just flatly ignoring likely played a role in Romney’s victory.
1. Washington County
This conservative county had its caucus canceled by state GOP officials and, according to Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton, Romney’s campaign was involved. The caucus was rescheduled for this Saturday because of reports of snow, which actually turned out to be a light dusting. John Tate, Ron Paul’s campaign manager, sent out an email blasting the state GOP for canceling the caucus, “The GIRL SCOUTS had an event today in Washington County that wasn’t canceled!”
Charlie Webster, the head of the Maine GOP, on Saturday evening stated that the results of Washington County would not be included in to the total, but luckily for the Paul campaign, the chair for Washington County is requesting that the results be counted. Disenfranchising and entire county is flat out absurd and every voter in Washington County should be furious.
2. Belfast, Maine
As per the official state GOP results, you would think that Mitt Romney had won the city, but the Chairman of the Belfast caucus claims that the “official” results are anything but accurate. At the caucus, the results of the vote were counted and announced publicly–much to the dismay of high ranking party officials. The Chairman of the caucus and several caucus goers maintain that Ron Paul won.
3. Androscoggin County
The WatchTheVote spreadsheet for this county has Ron Paul being under counted by 25 votes, which might seem like a small number, but when the margin of victory is 194 votes, it counts. The independently verified spreadsheet also lists other counties where Ron Paul was under reported.
And there are many, many more discrepancies between the Maine GOP’s numbers and the actual numbers.
On the bright side, however, Ron Paul supporters can look to their candidate’s own words during his speech after the Maine caucuses in which he claimed that he would likely carry the Maine delegation at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida this August. Just as a Romney win in Iowa flipped into a Santorum win when the votes were accurately and honestly counted, Ron Paul may just win Maine if this Saturday’s Washington county caucus results are included and if his supporters continue to press the Maine GOP about the accuracy of the results.
