Reality Check: GOP scrambles under allegations of rampant election fraud in Maine caucus

(FOX19) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is back on track after winning the Maine caucuses.

What the headlines haven't told you is that what happened in Maine is the messiest caucus Republicans have had so far, and it may not be over yet.

Maine, is not a major state during national primaries. Only 24 delegates come out of Maine to the national convention. But what happened there over the weekend does more than raise eyebrows. It is enough to make you question, was the caucus fixed?

Saturday night, February 11, the head of the Maine GOP, Charlie Webster, announced that Governor Mitt Romney won the Maine caucus by a slim margin.

The only problem, the governor was declared the winner with only 84 percent of precincts counted.

Two counties, Washington County and Hancock County had not yet held their caucuses. In Hancock, County Republicans had decided to hold their caucus this Saturday on February 18. In Washington County, the state GOP canceled the caucus because of snow concerns. Turns out, the area only got a light dusting.

The big problem here, Mr. Webster says even when those caucuses are held this Saturday, the votes won't count. I talked with him on the phone.

This article is from the 2012 election, but it provides another illuminating example of the corrupt party system. The GOP ME wants the pretense of voter participation, but never mind the actual vote count if it goes against the establishment candidate; in this case Romney.

Here is an example from the article. The GOP does not want transparency. and When voting didn't go as planned, they tampered with the results.

The GOPe is an insiders club masquerading as a democratic entity. It has instead perverted democracy by any measure. And I don't want to hear any crap about "this is a republic and not a democracy", because there is supposed to be a representative vote in a republic too.

The town of Belfast was one of 10 towns that held a joint caucus on the same day. That caucus was held on February 4. I talked with Matt McDonald, a pastor of a small community church in Belfast, who was nominated as the chairman of the Belfast caucus. He says 22 people showed up and caucused on the 4th of February.

McDonald also says that the state instructed the chairman of the caucuses to not read any of the votes out loud and to instead send them directly to party officials in Augusta. As his first order of business, McDonald made a motion to have the votes read aloud. it passed unanimously.

"We caucused and the vote was, eight for Ron Paul, seven for Rick Santorum, five for Mitt Romney and there were two undecideds. We reported this publicly, we counted it publicly." Says McDonald.

The announcement was so public that McDonald tweeted the results on the night of the fourth. But on Monday of this week, hearing all the controversy surrounding the announcement of Governor Romney as the winner, McDonald checked the state party's website and saw that no results had been posted from the Belfast caucus.

"The lady on the line said that she had received our tallies and our votes but had not recorded them yet and said she Romney nine, Rick Santorum with five, Ron Paul with two. Those weren't the right numbers and Ii told her, ‘ma'am those aren't the right numbers' and she said but those are the numbers we have. I said there are 22 Republicans here in Belfast who would tell you different because we counted our votes publicly and in light of that her voice kinda changed and she said we will record this and ended the conversation." Says McDonald.

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