Federal Prosecutors Review Lewiston Video of Interpreters Helping Somali Voters
Federal prosecutors in Maine are reviewing security footage of early voting at Lewiston City Hall after a conservative outlet accused interpreters of coaching Somali-American voters and, in some cases, filling out their ballots.
“We review all evidence concerning complaints of voter intimidation and election interference, including the video from Lewiston’s early voting at City Hall,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Benson told The Robinson Report.
“We will not tolerate threats to the integrity of our elections, and we look forward to working with the Attorney General’s Office and the Secretary of State’s office to defend our democracy,” Benson added.
The allegations came from The Maine Wire, the media arm of the conservative Maine Policy Institute, which obtained roughly 140 hours of footage through the state’s Freedom of Access Act covering early voting that began Oct. 13.
The outlet says the video shows more than 200 apparently non-English-speaking Somali voters receiving help from a handful of staffers from local immigrant-serving nonprofits stationed in the voting room for most of the period.
Reporter Jon Fetherston said Oct. 20 he saw interpreters “talking to people and pointing at the ballots,” and “a couple of people actually touching the ballots.”
What the Law Allows
A Benson spokesperson confirmed only to the Bangor Daily News that the footage is under “review” and declined to say whether the interpreters are under investigation. A Justice Department spokesperson told The Daily Wire an investigation is ongoing.
Federal law lets a voter who needs help because of a disability or an inability to read or write choose a helper. A federal appeals court ruled in 2017 that this includes an interpreter.
Maine law lets a helper read or mark a ballot as the voter wishes but bars telling the voter how to vote. Trying to influence a voter marking a ballot can bring six months in jail.
Pointing at or touching a ballot does not by itself establish that a helper broke those rules, and no one has been charged. The footage review is the next step in determining whether any assistance crossed the line.
Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has said her office received no credible report of illegal electioneering by an interpreter. “A citizen for whom English is a second language has the right to have an interpreter present,” she said Friday.
Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline, a Democrat seeking a third term Tuesday, said the city’s Somali community “has been harassed nonstop by political provocateurs and agitators all throughout early voting.”
The Justice Department plans to send election monitors to polls in Lewiston, Portland and South Portland on Tuesday, the first federal observers sent to Maine since Bellows took office in 2021.
Lewiston, the state’s second-largest city, is a battleground in the 2nd Congressional District, and Tuesday’s ballot is topped by the Senate race between Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democrat Troy Jackson.
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