Corrupted memory sticks halt counting of ranked choice ballots in Maine's 2nd District

AUGUSTA (WGME) – Votes in the ranked choice runoff in Maine District 2 were being tallied Tuesday to find out if Jared Golden would keep his seat in Congress or if Bruce Poliquin could somehow come from behind and pull off an upset.

That all came to an abrupt halt when two memory sticks containing thousands of votes could not be read.

• Also read: Ranked choice runoff to decide race for Maine's 2nd Congressional District
  

Election workers finished running the votes of all 11 counties in the district before they discovered the corrupted memory sticks.

One is from a polling place in Bangor and the other is from a polling place in Hampden.

Now they have the vote totals, but they do not have a record of how each ballot voted.

• Also read: Ranked-choice vote tabulation will decide race for Maine's 2nd Congressional District

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows says they have no choice but to go get those thousands of ballots so they can run them through the tabulator.

Because of snow in the forecast, state police are going to Bangor and Hampden Tuesday night to collect the 33 ballot boxes.

Then they will count them Wednesday.

It is expected to be an all-day process.