Maine Doesn't Care Who Votes So Long as Democrats Win

Steve Robinson, "Top Maine Democrats Decline to Investigate Full Scope of Legal and Illegal Aliens Voting in Maine’s Elections"

Medicaid records obtained by the Maine Wire show noncitizens are registered to vote in Maine's elections -- and the total number of illegal votes could be large enough to tip congressional and even the presidential election

Maine’s top Democratic officials are declining to make any new efforts to secure Maine’s elections against non-citizen voting in the wake of an exclusive report from the Maine Wire showing that non-citizens are registered to vote in Maine.

The Maine Wire’s Oct. 10 report used leaked data from Medicaid, known in Maine as MaineCare, that showed the alien status of 18 individuals living in southern Maine and compared that data to voter registration information from the Maine Secretary of State’s office.

The resulting cross-check revealed that, of the 18 legal and illegal aliens, six were registered to vote and five had votes cast under their names since 2016.

Following the Maine Wire’s report, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) sent a letter to the Maine Wire asking the news outlet to turn over all records related to the report on non-citizen voting.

“The allegations in your article, if true, may constitute serious crimes under Maine law,” Frey and Bellows wrote in their Oct. 11 letter. The Constitutional Officers asked for copies of all identifying information on the six illegally registered non-citizens, as well as complete copies of the underlying whistleblower documents.

[RELATED: Exclusive: Records Show Votes Cast Under Names of Non-Citizens in Multiple Maine Elections Since 2016…]

Complying with such a request, however, would expose the whistleblower who turned over the original Medicaid records, and on that basis, the Maine Wire declined to provide the Attorney General and the Secretary of State with the information they requested.

The report also triggered a wave of letters from Republicans, including the Republican National Committee’s election integrity group and Maine Republican leaders, demanding that state officials conduct an investigation or implement new election safeguards.

In a second Oct. 18 letter to the Maine Wire, Attorney General Frey, writing without Bellows, narrowed the State’s request to only a list of names, dates of birth, and addresses for the non-citizen voters the Maine Wire identified as being illegally registered to vote.

Frey expressed frustration over the Maine Wire’s refusal, stating, “Our request is solely about protecting election integrity. We need the names to ensure no fraud was perpetrated on the public.”

Once again, the Maine Wire refused to comply with this request because the disclosure of any names could potentially allow the Maine Attorney General’s Office or the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to determine who might have leaked sensitive Medicaid records to the Maine Wire.

One Maine media outlet (@WGME) has finally covered our report showing non-citizens have voted in Maine elections.

Still nothing from News Center Maine, BDN, PPH or anyone else. pic.twitter.com/qZQ3mjKixI

— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) October 16, 2024

[RELATED: The Blob: Maine Wire Exposes Non-Citizen Voting and Election Vulnerabilities Created by Paroled Illegal Aliens…]

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more commonly known as HIPAA, established stringent protections for sensitive medical records as well as harsh punishments for individuals who improperly leak or disclose medical records, such as Medicaid billing information. Those who violate HIPPA risk civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation as well as incarceration.

In addition to protecting the sources that allowed the Maine Wire to confirm that a potentially large number of non-citizens are illegally registered to vote in Maine’s elections, the Maine Wire declined to release those records to the State in order to protect the identities of the non-citizens themselves.

The records obtained by the Maine Wire do not indicate how these non-citizens became illegally registered to vote or whether they themselves illegally cast ballots. However, details within the records—including medical information about the cognitive capacity of several of the illegally registered voters—suggest that a third party was most likely involved in helping the non-citizens illegally register to vote and potentially even fill out their ballots.

Since the initial report, the Maine Wire has taken steps to share access to redacted versions of the underlying records with two of Maine’s largest media outlets, including one major newspaper and one major television station, and neither outlet has been able to dispute the facts originally reported.

Furthermore, the Maine Wire has offered access to dozens of elected officials and candidates for the State Legislature, and those who have had the opportunity to review the records have reached the same shocking conclusion originally reported by the Maine Wire: Non-citizens are illegally registered to vote in Maine and votes have been cast illegally in their names since at least 2016.

“I’ve seen the records the Maine Wire used to show that non-citizens are registered to vote in Maine’s elections,” said Republican Senate Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook).

“It’s clear that MaineCare beneficiaries with Alien Statuses other than ‘U.S. Citizen’ are registered to vote and votes have been cast under their names since 2016,” Stewart said.

“I’m disappointed that Gov. Mills, [Attorney General] Frey, and [Secretary of State] Bellows have decided to play politics rather than investigate seriously this clear and present threat to Maine’s elections,” he said. “Mainers deserve to know how and why illegal votes have been cast and counted in Maine’s elections.”

In response to the Maine Wire’s reporting, House Republican Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) called on Bellows to conduct an investigation into how many non-citizen voters may be registered to vote in Maine and may be having votes cast in their names.

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In his letter, Faulkingham suggested that Bellows compare Alien Status data from MaineCare to the voting rolls to quickly and easily identify the whole population of non-citizens who are registered to vote in Maine.

However, Bellows responded that doing so would constitution a violation of the laws governing the privacy of MaineCare data.

Faulkingham countered by sending an Oct. 21 letter to Mills asking that she instruct Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Sarah Gagne-Holmes to use the voter file — which is available to members of the public willing to pay for it — to proceed with an investigation into non-citizen voting.

“We are calling on you as the Chief Executive Officer of Maine to instruct the Department of Health and Human Services to use all available resources to cross reference Maine’s Central Voter Registration (CVR) system with the alien statuses in MaineCare billing records in order to determine how many ineligible voters are in fact registered to vote,” wrote Faulkingham. “This process should protect a patient’s health information through [HIPPA], as no protected health conditions will be disclosed.”

“Through your direction, DHHS Commissioner Gagne-Holmes can easily produce a report that reveals how many ineligible voters are registered to vote, how often they have voted, and in what election years and jurisdictions,” Faulkingham said. “Once again, this process can inform state policymakers and election officials of possible electoral fraud without violating privacy laws.”

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“As lawmakers, we realize that this request will not fix the potential fraud in our system as that is the responsibility of the Secretary of State,” he said. “However, this information can provide the Maine people the insight into how comprehensive a problem we may have on our hands.”

News Center Maine finally covers our reporting showing that votes have been cast in the names of non-citizens in Maine. pic.twitter.com/zgA6LzG382

— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) October 22, 2024

Mills, who is currently serving her second term as governor, offered a response to Faulkingham in the form of a statement to News Center Maine (WCSH), a left-leaning local TV station based in Portland.

[RELATED: Mills Admin Discloses Payments to Press Herald for Publishing Positive Articles on Maine Public Schools, DOE Spending…]

“The Attorney General and the Secretary of State have requested information and records from the Maine Wire to investigate their allegations,” Mills said.

“The Maine Wire has thus far declined. As Secretary Bellows has said, if the Maine Wire wants to help ensure the integrity of Maine’s elections, they would need to respond differently to that request,” said Mills.

Despite the requests from Mills, Frey, and Bellows, the Maine Wire continues to decline to provide information to the State that would allow investigators to identify a whistleblower and potentially prosecute non-citizens who may in fact be victims of identity theft.

Contrary to Mills’ assertion, the Maine Wire’s cooperation is not necessary to investigate the scope of illegal alien and legal alien voting in Maine’s elections because all of the records underlying the reporting are already in the government’s possession.

Although the Maine Wire’s reporting has, thus far, only identified six non-citizens who are illegally registered to vote, and five who have had ballots cast illegally under their names, the full scope of illegal non-citizen voting in Maine’s elections could be massive — large enough, even, to provide the margin of victory in some races.

The non-random sample size obtained by the Maine Wire included 18 non-citizens, including both legal aliens and illegal aliens, all of whom are legally prohibited from voting as they are not natural born U.S. citizens or naturalized U.S. citizens. Of that sample, six were illegally registered to vote, according to the Secretary of State’s records, meaning 33 percent of the sample.

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According to the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition (MIRC), a 501(c)3 nonprofit that helps migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers navigate life in Maine, the total population of noncitizens residing in the Pine Tree State is more than 87,000.

If 65,000 to 75,000 of those individuals are above the voting age of 18, and if the percentage of illegally registered non-citizens from the Maine Wire’s limited sample size is accurate at such a scale, then Maine could potentially have anywhere from 20,000 to 25,000 ineligible non-citizen voters registered to vote in its elections.

The extent to which non-citizen ballots are illegally entering Maine’s elections — whether it’s 600, 6,000, 16,000 or more — is a question that could have vast implications for Maine’s most recent elections, as well as the state’s future elections.

At the state level, illegal ballots cast by non-citizens or in the names of non-citizens could easily provide the margin of victory for State House of Representatives and State Senate elections. Those illegally cast votes could even be large enough to sway state legislative races so as to alter the balance of partisan power at the State House in Augusta.

In 2022, for example, Sen. Tim Nangle (D-Cumberland) won his race against Republican Gary Plummer by 346 votes. Similarly, the 2022 race for State House District 143 between Rep. Ann Marie Fredericks (R-Sanford) and Democrat Wesley Davie was decided by just 178 votes. In another nearby race, Rep. Anne-Marie Mastraccio (D-Sanford) beat Republican Pamela Buck by just 199 votes.

At the federal level, the scope of non-citizen voting in Maine could even have ramifications for the composition of the U.S. Congress.

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin lost his 2018 re-election fight against Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden by less than 4,000 votes when the ranked-choice voting tabulations were finished. Given the large number of non-citizens known to reside in the CD-2 cities of Lewiston and Auburn, Maine’s second and fifth largest cities by population, the number of non-citizen votes could have easily surpassed Golden’s margin of victory in that race.

The same illegal votes impacting congressional elections in northern Maine could also tip the scales in the most important of all elections: the presidential election.

If non-citizens in the Lewiston-Auburn are are registered to vote in large enough numbers, then those ineligible votes could decide which presidential candidate earns the Electoral College vote from Maine’s Second Congressional District.

When former Republican President Donald Trump ran for re-election against then-Vice President Joe Biden, he won the Electoral College vote by 22,396 ballots. However, in his first election against Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump only won the northern congressional district by 14,582 votes.

All of these scenarios are hypotheticals, however, until the state of Maine conducts an investigation to determine precisely how many non-citizens are registered to in Maine and how many times ballots have been illegally cast under their names.

Based on the MainCare records obtained by the Maine Wire and the Central Voter Registration system maintained by the Secretary of State, it’s clear that the number is at least six votes and potentially as many as 25,000.

Who Is Registering Non-Citizens to Vote?

The Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 prevents any state from removing voters from the voting rolls within 90 days of an election. That’s part of the reason why U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Biden appointee, on Friday reversed an effort by the Commonwealth of Virginia to remove alleged noncitizens from its list of registered voters. Those same rules apply to Maine, meaning that even registered voters identified as “2-Legal Alien” and “3-Other” in state Medicaid records could not legally be removed from the voter rolls.

However, some Republican elected officials are looking forward to the coming legislative session with eye toward fixing vulnerabilities in Maine’s election rules as well as investigating how noncitizens became registered to vote in the first place.

“The details of the MaineCare records that the Maine Wire shared with me make it clear that non-citizens are registered to vote in Maine elections. However, the records also suggest that a third party is somehow inducing or encouraging these foreign nationals to violate American election laws,” Rep. Mike Soboleski (R-Phillips) told the Maine Wire in a written statement.

“It’s important that we clear the voting rolls of ineligible voters and install election integrity measures, like Voter ID. But we must also investigate whether NGOs, political activists, or foreign organizations have facilitated this illegal behavior to influence Maine’s elections,” Soboleski said.

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Under Maine law (21-A M.R.S. §33), the Attorney General is specifically authorized by the State Legislature to investigate alleged violations of Maine’s election laws.

Although Maine’s current Attorney General, Aaron Frey, has signalled an interest in prosecuting the individuals identified by the Maine Wire’s reporting, he has not indicated any intention to investigate whether third-party political activists or paid canvassers have played a role in getting legal or illegal aliens registered to vote.

In December, Maine’s State Senate and House of Representatives will form a unicameral body to elect by majority vote new constitutional officers, including, potentially, replacements for both Frey and Bellows.

Looming large over the scramble to earn those legislative appointments will be the matter of noncitizen voting and whether noncitizens have become registered to vote in Maine through a coordinated or planned effort.

The records show some noncitizens registered to vote in Maine have severe medical conditions and intellectual disabilities. When coupled with a total lack of English speaking ability, those medical conditions make it unlikely that the individuals registered or voted independently or knowingly.

“If any person or group exploited migrant populations for political advantage, they must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” he said. “Priority number one for Maine’s next Attorney General should be a thorough investigation into these election crimes.”

How Are Noncitizens Registering to Vote

Amid the flurry of letters exchanged between and among the Maine Wire, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and several Republican leaders, there has been great disagreement how the state should respond to reports of noncitizen voting in Maine.

However, no public official has disputed that it’s entirely possible — and indeed, easy — for a noncitizen to become registered to vote, either wittingly or unwittingly.

While only U.S. citizens are legally permitted to vote in federal, state, and local elections, Maine does not require voter ID at the polls.

Rather than prove U.S. citizenship, and therefore eligibility to legally vote in elections, residents of Maine are asked to sign a form confirming that they are eligible to vote.

This signing may or may not take place in the presence of a qualified translator who understand election laws and appropriately advises their noncitizen clients.

In at least one instance reported by the Maine Wire, a woman who entered the U.S. illegally and applied for asylum status was offered voter registration paper work by a Maine welfare clerk.

According to Doris Rodriguez, a Spanish-language interpreter who helps asylum seekers obtain welfare benefits, she witnessed a Portland DHHS worker attempt to give a Venezuelan asylum seeker voter registration paperwork.

The Venezuelan woman had applied for benefits using a returned I-589 request for asylum, which was a clear indication that she was a paroled illegal alien — not a U.S. citizen or a naturalized U.S. citizen.

That means the welfare clerk should have known that the asylum seeker was ineligible to vote and that helping her register to vote would jeopardize her asylum claim.

“I said, ‘What do you mean? She can’t vote. She’s here illegally,’” said Rodriguez.

“I told them she can’t vote—she’s not a U.S. citizen. Offering her that form was setting her up for deportation,” said Rodriguez.

“I said, ‘Why would you ask her that?’ I mean, if she votes, she goes to prison. It’s a federal offense,” said Rodriguez.

“[S]he kind of looked down at the paper and she said, ‘Well, that’s what I was told to do, to ask,’ you know,” she said.

“She said that she was told by the head of by DHHS to ask the clients that are requesting benefits if they want to register to vote, even if they’re not legal citizens,” said Rodriguez.

A spokesperson from DHHS did not reply to questions about why DHHS welfare clerks would offer voter registration forms to noncitizens.