Posted to several political blogs is this record that a box full of uncounted Maine ballots is sitting in the kitchen of a woman who has sworn to oppose Dean with every breath. The evidence is blog posts from the woman herself. To get to the original posts, cut and paste the "tinyurl" urls into your browser's address window.


The caucus convener for Portland was a woman by the name of Mary Beth Williams, who posts on a blog called "Wampum" under the alias MB or MBW. She also, apparently, posts on DailyKos and elsewhere as well. She has been updating the situation concerning the slow vote count, and in the midst of it has said some rather odd things.

She does give a very compelling description of how overwhelmed they were by the enormous turnout, which has made things difficult. And she is quite peeved at those of us who are anxious to find out how the candidates actually did, implying that it is none of our business. (See her comments at http://tinyurl.com/3ykuu).

The disturbing part comes when she mentions, not once but twice that "The ballots are currently in a sealed box in my kitchen, waiting to be counted later today or tomorrow in a public place" (http://tinyurl.com/39cn5) and "The ballots are still in my kitchen, and they aren't going anywhere at least for a day" (http://tinyurl.com/28lc9).

Does anyone find it more than a bit strange that the ballots are sitting on someone's kitchen table? If that isn't odd enough, you should consider that Mary Beth Williams is adamantly anti-Dean because of a dispute that arose over a proposed Indian Casino in Vermont while he was governor. In fact, she vowed just last month that she will "oppose him with every breath I have." (http://tinyurl.com/2pd93)

Does anyone else find this a bit disturbing?

This is why the rest of the world does not take American self-righteousness about democracy very seriously.