Maine
As Republicans focus on voter fraud, a conservative Maine outlet enters the fray – The Boston Globe
The article prompted outrage among state and national Republicans, who called on Maine to investigate. But, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said her office, which oversees elections, has yet to see any evidence that backs up the outlet’s claims.
Bellows and Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey have asked the Wire for its records, but the publication has declined, citing concerns about protecting its confidential source of the records, some of which are from Maine’s Medicaid program, MaineCare. The Wire editor, Steven Robinson, has shared redacted copies of the records to other news outlets and elected officials.
“We have no way of knowing if the claims are valid or false without the ability to investigate,” Bellows said. “I expect that we will see, yet again, another safe and secure election here in our state.”
The allegations in Maine come as Republicans prompt claims of noncitizens voting, part of what Democrats and election officials say is a strategy to undermine trust in the electoral process and lay the foundation for legal challenges if former president Donald Trump loses the election to Vice President Kamala Harris.
It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in US state and federal elections. It has happened, but experts say the practice is extremely rare.
“This is really just a red herring and an attempt to inflame anti-immigrant sentiments and to drum up doubts about the election,” said Alice Clapman, senior counsel with the voting rights program at the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice, of the allegations in Maine.
And, A.J. Bauer, a journalism professor at the University of Alabama who studies conservative media, said the Wire’s reporting seems to be part of a “bigger project of stirring up hyperlocal animosity against migrants.”
Ahead of the election, false or misleading claims about illegal voting have cropped up everywhere from states including Pennsylvania and Virginia to the podium of Donald Trump. The former president has called mail-in ballots “corrupt,” and falsely claimed Democrats encourage noncitizens to vote.
“A lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote,” Trump said at the Sept. 10 debate.
Robinson declined a Globe interview request but in a statement stood by the outlet’s reporting.
“I’m 100% confident that at least six individuals described in MaineCare records as non-citizens are registered to vote and that votes have been cast in their names,” said Robinson, who also authored the piece. He said he doesn’t know how rare or common non-citizen voting is because the government hasn’t investigated.
“Nothing is required of the Maine Wire to solve this problem because the government already has all the records,” he added.
Bellows said her office cannot access Medicaid records due to privacy laws, and added that her office has asked for names, addresses, and birthdates of the individuals cited in the story. A spokesperson for the Department for Health and Human Services said it cannot share private medical records outside the agency due to federal privacy laws.
Spokespeople for the Attorney General did not respond to requests for comment.
“The unwillingness of the Maine Wire to share this information suggests that they’re more interested in undermining public confidence in our elections and potentially laying the groundwork for challenges” than an investigation, Bellows said.
A spokesperson for Governor Janet Mills also urged the Wire to turn over its documents, but did not address the Republican calls for her government to investigate.
Founded in 2011, the Maine Wire is owned by the Maine Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, and often publishes stories popular with right-wing audiences about topics such as transgender students, immigration, and local crime.
One of the Wire’s funders is Leonard Leo, a Maine resident who who has been deeply influential in helping Republicans fill the US courts with conservative judges. Leo, through two nonprofits, has also donated millions to groups that say their mission is to fight voter fraud and are gearing up to challenge a potential Trump electoral loss, The Wall Street Journal recently reported. Robinson said Leo does not have any editorial control.
“Any news outlet worth its salt would be concerned about non-citizen voting” and election security, Leo said in a statement, adding: “The Maine Wire did its job, and did it well.”
The Maine Wire report alleging noncitizen voting cited leaked Medicaid records, which included immigration statuses, for 18 people that it said it cross-referenced with voting records. Six of the 18 were registered to vote, all as Democrats, and five had voted in elections since 2016, according to the publication. But the article added that it was unclear if the individuals, some of whom were documented as having severe intellectual disabilities or cognitive impairment, intended to register to vote or were registered by someone else.
The article also did not publish the names of the individuals, saying it wanted to protect both its source and people’s “sensitive health information.” Robinson said the Wire did not interview any of the individuals because it would have required translators and put his source at risk.
That approach violated standard journalistic principles, said Kelly McBride, a media ethicist at the Florida-based Poynter Institute, who added that not pursuing interviews out of a need for translation services is a “weak, weak excuse.”
“It would absolutely be the norm to reach out and seek comment or input from any stakeholder who you are exposing either directly or indirectly in the article, especially if you are accusing them of something,” McBride said. “I cannot see how it would jeopardize their source.”
McBride added that the piece suffered from a “lack of complete reporting,” citing a section that said: “If their immigration statuses have been correctly recorded.”
Robinson defended his reporting, adding that government officials were incentivized to ensure the accuracy of the records for the state to be reimbursed for Medicaid care. In a second story, Robinson implied there could be substantially more voting by noncitizens in Maine, although did not cite additional evidence.
Some Republicans in the state have latched onto that fear. Maine House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, a Republican, said there’s “a high potential risk that it’s a bigger problem,” but did not cite evidence beyond referring to the Wire’s report. And Trey Stewart, a Republican who is the Minority Leader in the Maine Senate said he viewed the underlying records and has “no reason to doubt that it’s credible.”
Faulkingham added the Wire’s report underscored the need for a voter identification law in Maine, because otherwise voting is based on “the honor system.”
Worries about noncitizens voting influenced New Hampshire lawmakers to adopt some of the nation’s strictest voter ID rules in September, though they won’t take effect until after the election.
Sue Roche, executive director of the Portland-based Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, said there “is no incentive for noncitizens to vote,” citing serious consequences to their immigration status, including the potential for deportation. “ILAP calls on the public to recognize this tired and predictable rhetoric and to reject the politicizing of human beings.”
Aidan Ryan can be reached at aidan.ryan@globe.com. Follow him @aidanfitzryan. Stella Tannenbaum can be reached at stella.tannenbaum@globe.com.
A Massachusetts photographer was seriously injured when he was stabbed during a wedding reception last month in Raymond, Maine.
Donald Halsing, 26, was hospitalized for five days after the stabbing on May 23. NBC affiliate News Center Maine reported that 26-year-old Andrew Manderson was arrested and charged with elevated aggravated assault.
Still recovering, Halsing told NBC10 Boston the attack came out of nowhere — one moment, he was snapping photos on the dance floor, while the next, he was searching for help as blood spilled onto his camera.
“I was sitting there in that chair thinking, ‘There’s a real possibility I could die here,’” Halsing said. “Immediately, I put my hand on my chest here to try and stop the bleeding, get some pressure on it, and started yelling for help.”
Halsing was working at the reception at the Kingsley Pine Campgrounds. He took his last photo at 9:01 p.m., minutes before the stabbing.
“One of the wedding guests came up to me and started asking questions about our business,” he said.
Halsing said it was nothing out of the ordinary, and he tried to explain his photography business to the inquiring guest through the pulse of the DJ booth and celebrating guests.
“I thought he was going to reach in his back pocket for his phone, and instead, he didn’t pull out his phone — he pulled out a pocket knife and stabbed me,” he said.
Manderson, who faced a judge days later, is a cousin of the bride.
“There was this look in his eyes that he wasn’t quite all there,” Halsing said.
Halsing’s fiancée, Ashley Wall, was feet away as he struggled to stay awake. She has been his photography partner for eight years since they met at Framingham State University, and she was helping him work the wedding.
“People who were around me, they asked, ‘What can we do to help you? What do you need?’ And I said, ‘Please go check on Ashley. Please go check on my fiancée,’” he recalled.
Halsing spent five days in the hospital suffering from two lacerations to his liver, ultimately developing a blood clot in his left leg. But the road to recovery exceeds his physical wounds as he contemplates his mental state when he resumes photography next year.
“I’m also worried about what lingering effects there might be,” he said. “If we get out on the dance floor and I start remembering what happened, I don’t know how I’m going to react.”
Halsing still doesn’t know why he was attacked.
Manderson was released on $50,000 bail and is due back in court in October.
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This story will be updated.
The Maine Department of Transportation is moving to slash up to $400 million in projects from its agenda, a shocking and abrupt cutback that is rattling the state’s construction industry at the start of building season.
Roughly $50 million across six pavement projects have already been delayed, according to a memo exclusively obtained by the Bangor Daily News. The agency plans to cut or delay another $150 million in bridge, highway, intersection and multimodal projects later this month. A further $200 million or more in cuts are planned in the next three-year work plan.
Those figures were outlined by Transportation Commissioner Dale Doughty in the May 18 memo to Gov. Janet Mills that has since circulated widely in the transportation sector, which has been getting drip-by-drip details on the wide scope of the cuts over the past three weeks.
It comes at the beginning of the state’s relatively narrow construction season. Companies have hired workers and ordered materials for projects they expected to begin this summer. The severity of the transportation budget problems was not raised to lawmakers during the 2026 legislative session.
Kelly Flagg, executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Maine, called the shortfall “deeply troubling” in a statement.
“We stand ready to work with policymakers, stakeholders, and industry partners to identify both immediate and long-term solutions,” Flagg said. “Maine cannot afford to fall further behind.”
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The cuts stem from a structural funding gap of at least $130 million in the state’s current work plan, according to Doughty’s memo. Losses are magnified because state money from the gas tax and other revenue sources is matched by federal funds. Lawmakers have long grappled with politically difficult long-term problems with the state’s transportation budget.
A Mills spokesperson said Wednesday morning that the administration was working on a response to questions from the BDN. The department says it needs roughly $240 million more in state capital funding annually to maintain the existing system, and that anything less than $200 million will erode it over time.
Doughty’s memo the only near-term solution is a series of bonds beginning as soon as possible. Lawmakers would have to return to Augusta to authorize that if one is going to appear on the November ballot.
The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Michael Capeci is the former chairman of the Bangor GOP.
Let’s be honest about Maine’s current state.
For many families, the cost of living has become unsustainable. Housing is out of reach for many young people. Energy bills keep rising. Many small businesses are struggling under taxes and regulations that make it harder to grow. Rural hospitals are under strain and despite years of increased state spending, the results are not showing up in people’s daily lives.
Concurrently, Maine continues to lose young workers to other states. That is not a statistic, it is a warning sign.
To me, the question in this Republican primary for governor is not about slogans. It is whether we continue with a political approach that has failed to reverse these trends, or whether we nominate someone with new ideas. I think that someone is Owen McCarthy.
Owen is not a political insider. He is an entrepreneur from Patten, a small town where opportunity is not assumed, it is built. He grew up in a working-class family, became the first in his family to graduate from college graduating from the University of Maine, and founded MedRhythms, a healthcare technology company focused on neurological treatment.
He didn’t just talk about opportunity. He built it. That distinction matters, because Maine’s problem is not a lack of debate it is a lack of results. We have seen the trajectory: higher costs, slower growth, and a steady outmigration of young workers. I believe Owen McCarthy represents a break from that pattern.
His Maine 2040 plan focuses on creating 50,000 new jobs in sectors where Maine has real advantages — maritime and defense, advanced forest products, and life sciences. These are export-driven industries tied directly to Maine’s workforce, geography, and institutions. What sets Owen apart is not only what he proposes, but how he approaches governing.
He prioritizes modernizing permitting so projects do not stall. He supports using technology to reduce costs and increase efficiency. He focuses on making it easier to build, hire, and expand in Maine.
That same practical mindset extends to healthcare. Expanding telehealth, strengthening EMS systems, improving provider flexibility, and shifting toward earlier intervention are not abstract reforms. They are system upgrades designed to improve access while controlling costs.
Maine voters consistently respond to competence. They reward candidates who understand problems and present plans to solve them. I believe they are tired of rhetoric that does not translate into results, and skeptical of politics that prioritizes messaging over execution.
Owen’s approach is grounded in solving the issues that shape daily life — affordability, healthcare access, job creation, and government efficiency. That is not just policy positioning. It is a governing model that speaks directly to voters.
Some will point to his lack of political experience. But I believe Maine’s core problems are not the result of insufficient political experience; they are the result of policies that have failed to deliver measurable improvement. Experience inside a broken system, by itself, is not a solution.
If Republicans want to win, this primary must be taken seriously. From my perspective, it is not about choosing a nominee for governor who can energize the base. It is about selecting someone who can compete in a broader electorate that is frustrated and looking for change.
That requires a candidate who can speak beyond the base, not by abandoning principles, but by demonstrating competence and a credible plan to address Maine’s challenges. I believe Owen McCarthy offers that combination. He represents a shift away from managed decline and toward economic execution.
This is not just another primary. It is a decision about whether Republicans position themselves to win Maine or whether they remain trapped in a cycle of repeating the same strategies and expecting different outcomes.
If Republicans want to compete for Maine’s future, they cannot afford to nominate a candidate who only motivates part of the electorate. They need someone who expands it.
I believe Owen McCarthy is that candidate.
And if the goal is to win Maine, then the choice should be unmistakable
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