PORTLAND, Maine — Voters in the Unorganized Territory just north of Gouldsboro weren’t satisfied at all with the leading choices this election. Not one ballot was cast for either Republican President-elect Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In territory seven and the southern district of land still referred to by the acronym for “Bingham’s Penobscot Purchase,” no voters filled their bubbles for Trump or Clinton.
It was three votes for Green Party candidate Jill Stein and two for Libertarian Gary Johnson.
Voters in that territory stand out for their dissatisfaction with the choices they faced on Nov. 8, but areas throughout the state showed signs of low-energy voters, measured in one way by voting precinct totals for blank presidential ballots.
About 23,940 ballots came in blank, according to official results published by the Maine secretary of state’s office. The number of blanks this election cycle topped Clinton’s statewide margin of victory, 22,145 votes.
Voters casting a higher than normal number of blank ballots was the case in other states, too, according to a report from The Washington Post.
Other factors
Beyond blank ballots, 54,539 voters cast votes for candidates other than Trump or Clinton, with the most going to Johnson.
About 1,900 wrote in former CIA officer Evan McMullin and 333 wrote in Constitution Party candidate Darrell L. Castle. Write-ins Lawrence Kotlikoff and Cherunda Fox also picked up votes in Maine.
Towns showed their dissatisfaction in varying ways, with results in smaller areas skewed more heavily by just a handful of voters.
In Canton, for instance, only about 5 percent of voters left their ballots blank. Not including those blanks, about 21 percent voted for a candidate other than Trump or Clinton.
In Grand Falls Township, a majority of the town’s seven ballots went to third-party candidates.
In the town of Wesley, third-party candidates weren’t quite as attractive, with a greater share of votes going to nobody at all.
This story appears through a partnership with the Bangor Daily News.