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politics and politicians Title: Maine GOP Recounting Caucus Votes By TIM MAK | 2/16/12 2:48 PM EST The Maine Republican Party, under fire from Ron Paul supporters for its mishandling of the state’s recent caucuses, is now re-canvassing counties and municipalities to recount vote totals. POLITICO obtained an email from the State Republican Party asking local chairmen to send them the vote totals from their local straw polls. Continue Reading “County Chairman & Town Chairman,” an email written by a state Republican Party staffer reads. “We are reconfirming the totals from the Presidential Preference Straw poll. Can you please EMAIL ME the totals from your towns. For County Chairman if you are emailing the total for your entire county can you please list the towns that are included.” The letter was forwarded by a longtime Republican activist in Maine. The Maine Republican Party and its chairman, Charlie Webster, have been under attack in the last week for declaring Mitt Romney of the presidential straw poll in Maine when not all of the state’s caucuses have met to vote yet. On Saturday, Webster announced that Romney had won the presidential straw poll. Romney won the non-binding caucuses by just three points, 39 percent to Ron Paul’s 36 percent. Less than 200 votes separated the totals of Romney and second-place finisher Ron Paul. Several counties were not included in the presidential straw poll, including Washington county, where the caucuses were cancelled for the reason of inclement weather. Others municipalities had local caucuses scheduled for after Webster’s announcement. Washington county is expected to caucus this coming Saturday. Webster told POLITICO on Saturday although the Maine caucuses were scheduled for Feb. 4 to Feb. 11, he had no ability to tell local groups when to caucus. He estimated there are 505 municipalities in Maine, of which 420 have caucused. An additional 40 or so small municipalities will not hold a caucus at all, and the remaining would caucus after his announcement. Ron Paul’s campaign called the exclusion of Washington County’s results “inexplicable” on election night. “Paul performed well throughout the state, although his campaign’s stronghold of Washington County did not report today for inexplicable reasons,” according to a statement released by the campaign. The campaign released a second, more scathing email to supporters later on that evening. “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. 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,” read the statement. “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,” it continued. It remains to be seen whether the results in Washington County would lean towards Paul’s favor. In addition, only 118 votes were cast in the county in 2008 - not enough to make up the difference between Romney and Paul if a similar number of voters showed up to caucus. Neither state chair Charlie Webster nor the staffer who wrote the email immediately responded to a request for comment on Thursday.
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