Charlie Webster insisted that the errors did not change the caucus' outcome. Maine GOP: Results went to spam

Maine Republican Party chairman Charlie Webster has admitted that the state party made numerous clerical errors in counting the state’s caucus results — even omitting some votes because emails reporting tallies “went to spam” in an email account.

However, Webster insisted that the errors did not change the outcome.


On Saturday, he had declared former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney the winner of Maine’s Presidential Preference Poll by fewer than 200 votes, even though not all municipalities had reported results.

“There were clerical errors that did not significantly change the numbers. There were several smaller towns that were left out, the reporting was wrong. … We’ve corrected those clerical errors and will send those numbers out [soon],” said Webster in an interview with POLITICO.

For example, in Portland, the state party’s results originally showed that Paul won by 15 votes when in reality Romney won by 15, he said.

In addition, Webster said “about a half a dozen” towns never added to the tally on election night and that, in a couple of cases, e-mails from municipalities reporting caucus results actually “went to spam” in the state party’s email system.

The vote figures may be altered slightly, he said, but the results — a Romney win, followed by a second-place finish by Paul — would not change.

“You get people complaining about Waldo County [where some votes were not counted]. We’re talking 120 votes, and most of them went to Santorum. … It’s a handful of votes, and those are important, they all count, but it’s not like we were trying not to count them,” Webster asserted.

On Saturday, Webster declared that Romney won the nonbinding caucuses by 3 percentage points, 39 percent to Ron Paul’s 36 percent, with a margin of 194 votes separating the two.

In his interview with POLITICO, Webster denied suggestions that he was biased toward any presidential campaign. Webster and the state party have been strenuously criticized by Ron Paul supporters for the way the caucuses have been run.

“[Ron Paul supporters] are just being conspiracy theorists. … If they talked to any other legislators in Maine who are Ron Paul supporters, they would be told that I have been fair,” Webster said. “What angers me is that people who question that I’m neutral don’t know me.”

He added that as a state legislator he was sometimes called “Ron Paul Jr.” for being the lone vote in opposition to a measure.

On Friday evening, the state party released the newly-tallied results, which showed Romney increasing his lead over Paul. Romney took 39 percent of the vote to Paul’s 35 percent, with a new margin of 239 votes. This meant that the recount added 45 net votes to Romney’s previous vote total.

In the updated results, Romney received 2,269 votes; Paul received 2,030 votes; Santorum received 1,052 and Gingrich received 391 votes.

However, certain municipalities have still not yet gathered to caucus.

Washington County, where 118 votes were cast in the 2008 caucuses, is scheduled to caucus this Saturday after its caucus was postponed due to inclement weather last weekend.

The Ron Paul campaign had seized upon the delay to suggest malfeasance on the part of the state party.

“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 a scathing statement from the Ron Paul campaign this past Saturday, the night Webster announced the results.

“And just the votes of Washington County would have been enough to put us over the top. This is an outrage,” the statement continued.