Gov. Paul LePage didn’t vote Tuesday.
That fact was uncovered by Maine Democratic Party staffers, who keenly observed that because the governor was in Iceland on Election Day, he must have requested an absentee ballot if he planned to vote.
State records show the governor didn’t request a ballot. That means he didn’t vote.
Democrats cast LePage’s no-show at the ballot box as an abdication of civic duty.
“We know Paul LePage has been an absentee governor, so this should come as no surprise,” said Ben Grant, chairman of the Maine Democratic Party, in a news release. “The people of Maine deserve a leader that is engaged and involved and they rarely get that with Paul LePage.”
There wasn’t much of anything for LePage to vote for. That’s why he didn’t cast a ballot, said Brent Littlefield, the LePage campaign’s political adviser.
There were no contested primaries in LePage’s Augusta district. The only issue on the ballot in Augusta was whether to approve up to $8 million in municipal borrowing to fix up a local library. Littlefield said that while the governor lives in The Blaine House, he’s not an Augusta taxpayer because he doesn’t “own” the governor’s mansion.
“It wouldn’t be appropriate for the governor to decide what local property taxpayers choose to pay for,” Littlefield said.
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