Calais encounters heated politics on Election Day

CALAIS – Two Republican poll watchers who refused to identify themselves to the press and a Bush-Cheney sign illegally attached to a Maine Department of Transportation sign were all part of the hotly contested presidential race Tuesday that left several Down East people scratching their heads.

Republican poll watchers appeared at the Calais Elementary School on Tuesday to keep an eye on the election and to review the absentee ballots. They were just three of the thousands of poll watchers, Republican and Democrat, who were at sites across America on Tuesday.

Lynne Westcott of Calais and a woman who declined to identify herself were sifting through the more than 430 absentee ballots that had been cast.

“I’d just as soon not [give my name],” the woman said when asked for her name. Later, City Clerk Theresa Porter identified the woman as Gail Greenlaw.

At the same moment, a second woman, who also refused to identify herself, appeared and said, “I’m sorry, we don’t mean to be rude. That’s what our employers tell us,” she said. “We were under directions not to give interviews.”

Just a few feet away, two Democratic poll watchers – Gail Wahl and Mary Repole of Calais – were more than happy to give their names.

“I actually am quite proud,” Repole said.

Eastport lawyer John Foster, a member of the volunteer lawyers for the Democratic National Committee, said he was there to make certain those who wanted to vote would be allowed to.

“That the pattern of Republican challenges on reasonable grounds in the past don’t get repeated here in Calais at least,” he said.

When told that some of the Republican poll watchers declined to identify themselves, Foster seemed perplexed.

“What do they have to hide?” he asked.

While there were mystery poll watchers on the inside, a man using a cellular telephone, pacing outside the elementary school, was overheard saying, “They are running out of ballots.”

When asked by the media if the ballot problem was in Calais, the man refused to discuss the matter.

“I am not on record talking about anything,” he said. He said he was in Calais to work and not to be interviewed.

He then headed inside the polling station, followed by a Bangor Daily News reporter.

“You can’t come in here,” he said.

Porter disagreed, and the media were allowed in the elementary school.

While people were declining to identify themselves inside the polling station, huge political signs supporting President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney began to appear everywhere, including a Maine Department of Transportation pole on Main Street. The political sign was beneath a sign directing traffic to the Downeast Heritage Center.

When Jim Porter, chairman of the St. Croix Economic Alliance, the nonprofit group that owns the building that the Downeast Heritage Center is in, learned of the illegal sign, he notified the DOT.

“The sign overshadows the Downeast Heritage sign which is there legally,” City Manager Linda Pagels said.

Within minutes of the media taking pictures of the illegally attached sign, Vinton Cassidy, a candidate for the Calais mayoral race and a noted Republican, removed it. He said the people inside the Bush-Cheney headquarters had told him the signs had been stolen from another location and had mysteriously appeared on the DOT sign.