Nerd-

I believe you've way off-base with regard to how caucus voting and final reports are done in Maine. The initial caucus results were phoned in to Democratic Party headquarters in Augusta by town chairs or their surrogates and then followed up with a set of forms filled out by each participant and a formal summary.

As of this morning's newspapers, some 88% of the hard copy municipal reports had been received in Augusta. The Portland report was still outstanding although an oral report had been phoned in Sunday.

It is not unusual for Town Democratic Chairs to take all the caucus forms home to summarize, away from the confusion of the caucus itself. I certainly did that and delivered the report to Augusta on Monday. Could a Town Chair have altered the results at that point? Not easily. The Town Clerk/Voter Registrar was required to be at the caucus and check off each of the caucus attendees, so one could not add extra forms.

However, there was a possibility for "double counting" either by mistake or deliberate action with regard to "absentee ballots." We received a set of absentee ballots from Democratic Headquarters before the caucus and then had to check if any of the "absentees" were actually present. In our case, 3 out of 10 were present. If a caucus coordinator had made a mistake and double counted someone, there is a possibility that this mistake would be noted by Headquarters when they double checked all the forms submitted. But it's also possible that the Headquarter's staff would miss the mistake. However, I doubt if this kind of mistake would alter the relative ranking of the major candidates in Maine's case which at this point are reported to be Kerry 44%, Dean 28% and Kucinich 16%.

That said, Democratic Party officials freely acknowledge that some caucuses were overwhelmed by the turnout and their number did not "add up" while others had managed their caucuses "in their own unique way" which will have to be reconciled with party rules, ultimately by a vote at the Party State Convention in May.

At this point it's probably more productive to focus on Bush or if you're really resentful or bitter about the outcome of this process then drop out. In my opinion Dean's Campaign self-destructed in Iowa and although I ended up voted for him in last Sunday's Caucus I expect to be working full-time for Kerry.

Charley Noble