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At a gathering in Portland, state Republican Chairman Charlie Webster announced Romney had won with 2,190 votes, or 39 percent, compared to 1,996 — about 36 percent — for Ron Paul, the only other candidate to aggressively compete in the state. Rick Santorum received 989 votes and Newt Gingrich won 349, but neither actively campaigned there. Other candidates drew 61 votes.
The totals reflected about 84 percent of the state's precincts. Webster insisted that any caucus results that come in after Saturday wouldn't be counted no matter how close the vote.
"Some caucuses decided not to participate in this poll and will caucus after this announcement," Webster said. "Their results will not be factored in. The absent votes will not be factored into this announcement after the fact." AP
Caucuses in Washington County scheduled Saturday were postponed until February 18 because of a major snowstorm that blanketed the region. Earlier, the state party’s Executive Director Michael Quatrano said county officials were told the results would not count toward the total. TimeSwampland
But Washington County GOP Chairman Chris Gardner objected, saying he had known his county's tally wouldn't be included in Saturday's announcement but didn't realize it wouldn't be counted at all. He said he had called state party leaders and "expressed my complete and utter dismay." AP 2
They canceled 17% of the precintcs where Paul was doing good.
The Romney campaign had a hand in the sites that was canceled.
The Paul campaign had tried to lower expectations somewhat during the day, alleging that the Romney campaign had been involved in some tricky business, and predicting that the results would be very close.
In particular, a senior Paul aide had suggested that the Romney campaign was involved in the cancellation of Washington County’s caucuses, a small county where Paul’s campaign had expected to do well. “It’s not completely insidious, but they knew we were going to swamp it up there,” said Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton.
The state GOP said that the caucuses were cancelled due to inclement weather.
Read more: www.politico.com...Politico
Looks like something fishy took place up here. I attended my local GOP caucus. When you first registered, you were given 2 cards. A yellow card to vote in the straw poll, and a green card to vote for delegates to the Maine State GOP Convention, where the delegates will be choose to go to the National Convention. I threw my name in the hat to be a delegate.
Well, when it came time to vote for the delegates, during the count, the caucus chair announced there was a problem. There were 19 more ballots that were turned in verses the number of green cards were turned in. According to party rules, the vote is voided.
Of course, it was asked why not just take the ballots that are there, and count those, and announce who were going to be the delegates. The chair announced that it didn't matter if there was 1 more ballot or a million more ballots, the vote was void.
As of this moment, I have no idea what is going to happen. I can tell you that of the 73 delegates that were allocated to Portland to go to the State Convention, a majority of them would have been Ron Paul supporters. The turnout was awesome for Dr. Paul. Young, middle aged, older etc. The spokesman who spoke on behalf of Dr. Paul was a military vet, and probably the same age as Dr. Paul.
LewRockwell
LAKE JACKSON, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tonight the campaign of 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul sent an email to supporters regarding today’s caucus results from the state of Maine. See below for a portion of comments from Ron Paul 2012 Campaign Manager John Tate.
“Ron Paul will win the most delegates out of Maine tonight.
“In fact, he will probably even win the ‘beauty contest’ straw poll the media has already called for Mitt Romney – even before all the votes have been tallied.
“In Washington County – where Ron Paul was incredibly strong – the caucus was delayed until next week just so the votes wouldn’t be reported by the national media today.
“Of course, their excuse for the delay was ‘snow.’
“That’s right. A prediction of 3-4 inches – that turned into nothing more than a dusting - was enough for a local GOP official to postpone the caucuses just so the results wouldn’t be reported tonight.
“This is MAINE we’re talking about. The GIRL SCOUTS had an event today in Washington County that wasn’t cancelled!
“And just the votes of Washington County would have been enough to put us over the top.
“This is an outrage. But our campaign is in this race to win, and will stay in it to the very end.
“Congressman Paul’s message of liberty and Constitutional principles is resonating with Americans everywhere who are sick and tired of the status quo establishment, and we plan to take this campaign on to ‘Super Tuesday’ and beyond.” buisnesswire