Eleven races for Maine Legislature will be recounted

Locked ballot boxes get wheeled in by a member of law enforcement for a ranked-choice voting tabulation for Maine's 2nd Congressional District. (Photo by AnnMarie Hilton/ Maine Morning Star)

Eleven legislative races from the Nov. 5 election will be recounted, per requests from the losing candidates.

Maine law does not require recounts, but candidates can request one. Candidates are allowed to request a recount without having to pay a deposit if the races are very close — 1% or less of the apparent margin of victory. Wednesday marked the final day a recount in a non-ranked-choice-voting race could be requested.

Of the recounts requested, two were for state Senate races — Senate districts 8 and 15 — and nine were for Maine House of Representative races: House districts 96, 98, 81, 58, 75, 52, 44, 142 and 141.

Only two of the requested recounts had a preliminary vote differential that exceeded 1%: House District 44, in which incumbent William Pluecker defeated Ray Thombs by 7.1%, and House District 142, in which incumbent Anne-Marie Mastraccio defeated challenger Amy Bell by 1.68%.

During the recount process, representatives for each candidate along with department staff will manually review each paper ballot. They are open, public proceedings.

While Secretary of State Shenna Bellows narrated the livestream of a ranked-choice run-off for the 2nd Congressional District, she gave an update Wednesday evening about the legislative recounts that will ramp up as the tabulation for the congressional race ends.

She said the election staff will take on Maine House races in the 2nd Congressional District first, since those ballots are already on-hand from the ranked-choice tabulation.

The schedule laid out by the Office of the Secretary of State has the first legislative recount on Friday, between Kerryl Clement and Michel Lajoie in House District 96. They continue throughout next week and conclude on Nov. 25, between Senate District 15 candidates Richard Bradstreet and Raegan LaRochelle.

Typically, Bellows said, staff are able to recount a Maine House race in about half a day, but a state Senate recount usually takes an entire business day. However, because they need to have equal numbers of volunteers for each candidate, it depends on how many volunteers each campaign sends to conduct the recount.

The recounts will take place in the Florian Room at 45 Commerce Drive, in Augusta, which also houses Maine State Police headquarters.

What that means for the balance of power As it stands, Democrats are poised to maintain their trifecta of power between the governor's office and both chambers in the 132nd Maine Legislature.

Every race has not yet been called by The Associated Press, but enough to confirm Democratic control of the Maine Senate.

The Maine House Democratic Campaign Committee said last week it was still waiting on one race to be called to confirm a majority in the lower chamber. Results collected by the House committee as well as its counterpart in the Senate show at least a 76- to 72-seat majority in the House and a 20- to 14-seat majority in the Senate.

Even though Democrats will retain the control they've held since 2018, Republicans were able to make headway by flipping districts in both chambers and even unseating a few incumbents.

In the Senate, Republicans were also successful at defending a few open seats that Democrats targeted.