November 16, 2018 was my last post about Maine's election for
US Representative for their second Congressional district.

And it has taken from then 'til now for the losing side to concede defeat.

Paul LePage, not a candidate but Maine's outgoing Republican governor,
will be replaced by Democratic candidate Janet Mills in 2019.

Republican congressional Representative Poliquin, in the 2nd district,
was fighting for a second term.
Maine had just made a new election law that
if the initial election was too close to call in terms of majority,
then a new feature, introduced onto those ballots in that election,
would be used for a re-count.
While casting that initial vote on the ballot, the voters
also used a ranked-choice system to answer the additional question,
supplement your first-choice candidate
with a second-choice candidate on that ballot.

As described in the November 16 post,
in this Congressional race,
the Republican had more overall votes than the Democratic challenger,
but not by a sufficient majority.
So Maine, by law, went to the ranked choice
filled out in those same ballots.
and in THAT recount,
the Democratic challenger had more votes than the incumbent Republican.

Outgoing Republican Representative Poliquin
has been in the courts with lawsuits and appeals.
Only on Christmas Even did Poliquin finally Tweet his announcement
that he would drop his litigation.
Poliquin had requested, and got, a week-long recount.
Since the recount did not change the election results,
Poliquin has to pay for the recount -- a five-figure sum,
largely to the Maine State Police
who were required to physically retrieve all those ballots all over the district --
and this district in Maine is the largest, in terms of square miles, in the nation.

With Poliquin's decision,
outgoing governor LePage could, and has, officially certified the election results. The announcement was ... yesterday,
December 28.

On January 3, Maine's second Congressional District will have a Democratic Party representative-elect, Jared Golden, sworn in.