It was “standing room only” in the combined supercaucus in Washington County, Maine today, according to the Bangor Daily News. The paper reports “Ron Paul scores big wins in Hancock and Washington counties,” the two counties which had yet to hold all of their caucuses before Maine’s hapless, attempted vote suppressor and state GOP Chair Charlie Webster prematurely announced Mitt Romney the “winner” of the state caucuses by just 194 votes one week ago tonight.
But, according to both the paper’s tallies and the state party’s, Paul’s pickups today were not enough to top Romney, as one more town has yet to caucus (Castine is currently scheduled for March 3), and as revised results, posted by the state GOP late last night, continue to be scrutinized…
From Bangor Daily News’ coverage this evening…
In Washington County’s supercaucus, Paul attracted 163 votes to Mitt Romney’s 80, and in the town of Hancock, in the county of the same name, Paul received 41 votes to Romney’s 16. Paul also picked up four more votes to Romney’s two in Clinton, which also caucused Saturday morning, and 19 votes to Romney’s seven in Eastbrook.
The numbers weren’t enough to overcome Paul’s 239-vote deficit statewide, but the poll is nonbinding, meaning the state’s 24 GOP delegates won’t necessarily be apportioned based on the results. However, the decisive wins might cool the momentum Romney claimed after he was declared the winner in Maine a week ago.
Paul’s Saturday wins put him 117 votes behind Romney statewide, according to an unofficial tabulation by the Bangor Daily News.
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The town of Castine will caucus March 3.
The caucus in East Machias included all Washington County Communities. Saturday morning’s caucuses in Hancock represented the communities of Fletcher’s Landing, Gouldsboro, Hancock, Lamoine, Sorrento, Sullivan, Waltham and Winter Harbor and Saturday afternoon’s caucuses in Eastbrook included Amherst, Aurora, Eastbrook, Franklin, Mariaville and Osborn.
Paul’s gain of 122 votes on Romney, as reported above, leaves him still 117 votes shy of a statewide win, according to both BDN‘s current tally and the GOP’s revised numbers [PDF] as posted on their website late last night.
Barring any new inaccuracies discovered (not completely out of the question), it seems unlikely that the March 3 caucus in Castine will turn out enough voters to overcome the reported margin. On the other hand, if Paul supporters want to win bad enough, they’ll know by March 3 exactly how many votes they’ll need to pick up in the one remaining town.
In the meantime, Paul supporters and Election Integrity advocates are busy combing over the GOP’s updated results and today’s numbers and — presuming all caucuses in question were publicly tallied with the results reported to those in attendance before they were called or emailed in to the state GOP last week and today — if any remaining inaccuracies or unreported totals remain in the GOP’s “official” tallies, they should be easily spotted by those who were in attendance and, hopefully, quickly corrected.
Lack of computer tallies — thanks to hand-marked paper ballots immediately and publicly counted at the precinct — makes such errors (or any purposeful manipulation) much easier to spot and correct. That, for example, is how we learned that Mitt Romney didn’t actually win Iowa, after a Ron Paul supporter stepped forward with accurate numbers he’d overseen at a caucus where totals had been misreported by the state GOP after the GOP chair there similarly announced Romney as the “winner” prematurely. In that case, Rick Santorum was eventually found to have been the winner, though it was week’s after the corporate media had turned their attention elsewhere.
Questions about which results will be considered as “final” in Maine will be finally answered when the GOP state committee meets on March 10 (four days after Super Tuesday) when they will vote on whether results from caucuses held after February 11 will be included in the state’s final numbers.
At the same meeting the state committee will also decide whether to censure state GOP chair Charlie Webster, as recommended by a vote of the Waldo County GOP this week in the wake of the embarrassing handling of the entire Republican Caucus this year which — if history holds any justice — will eventually be remembered as “Webster’s Follies”.
Relatedly, one amusing point worth mentioning here — especially given that Rick Santorum is now, incredibly enough, seen as the GOP front-runner for the nomination, according to most national polls — there was this graf from the BDN‘s coverage today [emphasis added]:
This is going to be a difficult year for Republicans. And, though we don’t really do “predictions” around here, we’ll reiterate the one that we’ve been tweeting for months now. Namely, there remains a better than 50% chance that there will need to be a brokered convention when the Republican National Convention convenes in Tampa later this year, and it’s equally possible that none of the current field of contenders will ultimately be the GOP’s 2012 nominee for President. We see no reason to back off on that assessment at this time.
With that out of the way, here is all of our previous detailed coverage of the disastrous 2012 Maine GOP Caucuses:
2/15/12: Maine GOP Commits Massive Election Fraud in State Caucuses; Paul Supporters Justifiably Outraged
Republican election fraud epidemic continues…2/16/12: More on The Maine Republican Party’s Stolen 2012 GOP Caucuses – And How It Appears They Did It…
2/17/12: Maine GOP Posts New Results Tonight, Shows Romney’s ‘Win’ Over Paul Slightly Increased
State GOP Chair Charlie Webster slimes Paul supporters; Party finally relents and releases updated numbers…
Could it be that even the rank-and-file membership of the Republican Party will become disillusioned with their Party’s leadership, now that they themselves have been so blatantly targeted for scamming?
Like anybody believes them at this point. Trust is broken. Whether people mentally understand it or not they get it at the gut level!
The installment plan comes to an election near you.
More at Obama’s Garden: http://obamasgarden.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/answers/
What Ron Paul people should do is to make a motion to have the votes read in public when counted and record the results or have the results filmed. This will put pressure on the GOP to not cheat and manipulate the results.
Cool the momentum?
I hate to tel you, but 99.99% of the people DON’T care. Since it IS non-binding, it was meaningless. And it is still a win for Romney. In a state in which Paul placed ALL his eggs in one basket and Romney ignored for over half of the caucus period. Won’t cool anything.
Hey Brad, there are a couple of wrinkles such that the latest GOP announcement still is not credible. I ran the numbers on their “retally” and they still don’t add up. For example, 3+2+2=6.
They now claim they only retallied some locations but not others, and they don’t disclose which. And the chain of custody was toast on the retally anyway.
Kennebunkport is affected and suffering fraud in this unlawful ‘electioneering.’
Inquiring minds want reporters to find out, so that all might know: What comments on Maine Republican fraud does the Big GOP Cheese precinct boss on his&hers throne in Kennebunkport offer for better understanding, both in his mind and ours?
What does Poppy&Babs know about this racketeered corrupt practice of Republicans in Maine and when did he know it, and if not knowing anything (for being “out of the loop”) then why is he not knowing anything?
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