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Ballot Recount Sees Little Change

Posted on December 14th, 2010

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A controversy has arisen from the Maine, Oxford county voting results for the approval of a $165 million casino to be constructed by Black Bear Entertainment. The vote was conducted last Nov. 2 and resulted in a vote of yes for the construction of the casino. However, Groups against the construction have expressed their desire for a recount to be conducted because of the possibility that there might have been human or machine error involved in the original counting. The original result was a 4,601 more in favor of the casino. Votes cast was 556,000 so the lead is less than 1%. Opinion of the voters are split at almost 50/50 so those against the casino feel that there might still be a chance that a mistake was committed either during the vote itself or afterwards during the counting.

The recount was a request of the Oxford Hills No on 1 and CasinosNo! Groups. Both sides were asked to provide 10 volunteers each to do the counting. The task set for them is to do hand counting of 500,000 ballots. The volunteers will count the ballots while a state employee is assigned to observe them. The recount shouldn’t be too expensive for the state because most of the ballots were already in Augusta. But for those that were still to be transferred, they will be retrieved by Maine State Police Troopers. Black Bear Entertainment spokesman Mark Robinson, said that they were only “beating a dead horse.” He thinks that the whole recount is a “fool’s errand at this point.” Earlier this week the casino gained 23 more votes from the recount and before Friday another 53 yes votes were uncovered.

Black Bear Entertainment intends to continue its development plans while the recount is ongoing. The recount might seem like an inconvenience to the group but the anti-gambling groups do have a constitutional right to it. They do want the recount to end soon because they are paying their volunteers as well as a lawyer to watch over the recount. Their volunteers even went through a training seminar to prepare themselves. The state doesn’t allow those with economic interests to become a volunteer so employees are barred from doing so. The 10 that the company sent to count are being compensated by paying for their expenses.

Proponents of the recount, although admitting that it might be almost impossible at this point feel that it is their duty to those who voted against the casino to at least make sure that the results wasn’t tampered or incorrect. The recount started with the biggest municipalities first Portland, South Portland, Lewiston, Bangor and Scarborough. It is expected, considering the volume of work, to last about a month unless one side concedes. The casino if it gets built is expected to generate a lot of revenue as well as needed jobs. Volunteers of Black Bear Entertainment are mostly from the group who expect jobs to be created by the casino.

With an almost 50/50 vote for and against the casino, the recount has seen equal amounts of support and opposition. While the recount is perfectly constitutional, supporters of the casino initiative have said that there really is no purpose for the recount other than to delay the progress of the construction of the casino. Casino supporters believe that the results thus far, the lack of changes, speak for itself—the first vote count was legitimate. Opponents of the casino initiative, however, have expressed their support for the recount process. The groups and individual backing behind the recount said that until the recount really finishes, there is no real way of ascertaining whether or not the casino initiative won.

Residents in Maine had decided numerous times on different casino issues. In 2003, residents voted against a tribal casino proposed by the Penobscots and Passamaquoddies. The project was pegged to be at $650 million. The people, however, have approved several referenda since then, including a proposal that plans to put slot machines in several of the State’s racetracks.