AUGUSTA (NEWS CENTER Maine) — The campaign for Rep. Bruce Poliquin has requested a recount of Maine's 2nd Congressional District election results, which were first finalized by ranked-choice voting on Nov. 15.
The Maine Secretary of State's Office confirmed receipt of the recount Monday afternoon, the 2018 deadline for such a request to be filed by a campaign.
On Nov. 15, nearly six days after Election Day, the office processed results from the district's 370-plus towns. An official tabulation showed Democratic candidate Jared Golden as the winner by about 2,900 votes in the final round — 139,231 to Rep. Poliquin's 136,326.
A final certification process on Monday, Nov. 26, included an additional six towns whose results didn't properly upload into the election reporting software, the office said. That tally again showed Golden beating Poliquin — 142,440 to 138,932 — this time by about 3,500 votes.
In a statement Monday, a spokesperson for Poliquin's campaign argued that the state secretary's office's tabulation process involving computer software is not entirely transparent.
"We have become aware that the computer software and 'black-box' voting system utilized by the secretary of state is secret," the spokesperson said. "No one is able to review the software or computer algorithm used by a computer to determine elections."
This prompted the campaign to take action and file the request.
"We have heard from countless Maine voters who were confused and even frightened their votes did not count due to computer-engineered rank voting," the spokesperson said. "Therefore, today, we are proceeding with a traditional ballot recount conducted by real people."
The recount process is expected to take four weeks to complete.
According to the Secretary of State's Office, per Maine law, due to a margin of more than 1,000 votes, the Poliquin campaign will be charged $5,000 if the results are unchanged after the recount process.
Poliquin's campaign has a press conference planned for Tuesday morning.
The Golden campaign released a statement Monday night saying, in part, that his opponent's actions were hurting the people of Maine's 2nd District.
"First [Poliquin] asked a judge to stop the counting, now he wants the secretary of state to count again," the statement read. "Mr. Poliquin must face facts: he lost, and Jared Golden will be seated on Jan. 3. For the good of Maine's people, it's time for [Poliquin] to move on and assist [Golden]'s staff in an orderly transition."
For more information on Maine's recount process for an office elected by ranked-choice voting, visit maine.gov's Election website