From Lisbon to Rangeley, and most points in between, voters turned out Tuesday in unexpectedly large numbers determined to cast their ballots as part of a 14-state Super Tuesday primary.

In town after town, residents voted down Question 1, typically by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, to help defeat the proposed repeal of a new law that requires students to get vaccines. Mechanic Falls, Jay, Minot and many other towns provided lopsided tallies against the referendum.

Other voters hoped to shape the outcome of a tough Democratic presidential nomination process, which has yet to offer a clear winner for the opportunity to take on Republican Donald Trump in November’s general election.

Former Vice President Joe Biden managed to win Auburn, Lewiston and many towns throughout Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties, as part of a surprisingly strong showing nationwide.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who ran second in much of the region, won in Farmington, which has many college students, but fell short in most municipalities.

Late Tuesday, Maine’s overall Democratic primary results appeared close between Biden and Sanders, with towns such as Andover and Minot having a single vote separating the two candidates.

Republicans aimed to register their support for what one of them called “big Donald” in his one-person primary in Maine. The president did not even face a registered write-in opponent.

Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, who spent the day touring voting sites across Maine, said it appeared turnout was greater than expected. It was busy everywhere, he said, but everything went pretty smoothly on a bright, sunny day.

In Lewiston, turnout reached 26% on Tuesday. That compares to an 18% turnout for the June 2018 primary that featured gubernatorial primaries for both parties and a congressional primary for Democrats.

Outside Lewiston’s sole polling place at the former Longley School, Joe Paradis took satisfaction in the steady torrent of voters heading in to cast ballots.

Paradis, 90, said he has never missed a chance to vote.

Growing up in the city’s French community, he said, the necessity of voting was in the blood of everyone around him.

“You did your duty. You voted,” he said. “I was raised like that.”

Later in the day, though, it got somewhat tricky for Lewiston voters who arrived at Longley to find the large parking lot across the street, which serves the Androscoggin Bank Colisée, was off limits because of tournament hockey games that election planners failed to foresee.

But voters came anyway, piling out of a Bobcat Express van from Bates College, pulling up in an old, beat-up truck or walking a few blocks to avoid the chaos around the school.

It was unclear if the parking mess caused anyone to skip participation, but there was no shortage of eager voters inside Longley, where lines to register or to put finished ballots into an electronic tabulator often had dozens of people waiting. Some voters cooled their heels for a half-hour or longer before they even got a ballot.

Pat Bergeron had no trouble casting her votes against a proposed repeal of mandatory vaccines for students and for “the big Donald” Trump to serve again as the Republicans’ candidate for the White House he won in 2016.

The state Republican Party leader, Demi Kouzounas, hailed Trump’s win in the one-person primary as an example of “unprecedented unity.”

In Democratic-leaning Lewiston, though, many voters showed up mostly to make a selection from among the five active Democratic candidates for president.

Among the enthusiastic backers of Sanders was Zach Pushee. He said the Vermont senator has the best chance to defeat Trump.

It was a sentiment shared by Eric Viera, a Bates senior, who said the country needs “some type of radical change” to catch up with many European nations — a change for which Sanders would push.

Viera said the United States could “do a lot of good” around the world if it could put aside the notions of those who “only care about ourselves.”

For Mike Neff, Sanders simply sounded more convincing than his Democratic rivals, including Biden and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Neff said he was sure Sanders “would do a better job than what Trump’s doing.”

Not everyone was for Sanders, of course.

On his way in to vote, Dave Cyr said he would probably go with Biden. Sanders, he said, “is too much of a socialist for me.”

Tim Hunter, a Bates sophomore, said he favored Warren because she has so many good plans to deal with issues across the board. It is a sign, he said, that she knows how to surround herself with bright people who can do the job.

That is “a sign of a good leader,” Hunter said.

Voters offered strong opinions on Question 1, but none of the yes voters approached by the Sun Journal agreed to provide his or her name. Those voters talked mostly about the necessity of preserving parents’ right to choose whether to immunize their children.

Cyr, who opposed the referendum, said he knew people who had polio when they were young and he had no interest in risking a return to a time when children needed walkers and braces — if they survived.

Bergeron said she is a nurse and believes everyone should be inoculated.

“Everybody ought to be protected,” Pushee said, because it does not make sense to risk getting a disease that is largely preventable.

Dunlap said he was not too worried about foreign interference in Maine’s voting despite warnings this week from U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia is angling to attack the election again.

With paper ballots, Dunlap said, the votes can always be counted.

He added that foreign countries wanting to meddle in U.S. elections are more apt to try to get Americans to wrangle even more with one another on social media, fostering chaos and anger.

He said they create fake news sites, push fake news stories and rely on Americans to share them as if they are real.

It has been such an effective tactic, Dunlap said, that sometimes questions asked by moderators at polling places “originated in the hallways of Russian intelligence.”

Fortunately, he said, Americans are growing more sophisticated about what is going on.

And in the end, Dunlap said, people are “in control of their own vote.”

For statewide results, see sunjournal.com/march-election.

 

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