PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s Republican nominee for governor recently told a crowd of supporters that he would ask a top Department of Homeland Security official to send U.S. Marshals and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling places in the state for this fall’s midterm elections, according to audio obtained by The Associated Press.During an Aug. 20 event in Arundel, Bobby Charles told a group of supporters that he would ask Tom Homan, the White House border czar, to send federal agents to polling places in the weeks before Election Day. The audio was first reported by the Bangor Daily News.“Here’s my secret,” Charles told members of a Maine Young Republicans chapter. “I have a friend named Tom Homan. Tom and I used to get on Fox all the time together. Tom’s an awesome guy.”“I’m going to ask Tom, I’m going to actually — three or four weeks before the election, maybe three — I’m going to make an appeal for ICE and Marshals to be at our voting booths,” Charles said, according to the audio.
On Wednesday, he explained his comments by saying state and local authorities who manage elections should have an open line of communication with federal authorities if needed to “prevent violence at a voting place, in order to prevent intimidation at a voting place and in order to prevent illegality at a voting place.”He said his point was that Maine authorities should do everything legally possible to prevent illegal voting in the state.“Everybody who is legally entitled to vote should be free from any intimidation and should be able to vote,” he said in a statement released by his campaign. “Anybody who is not legally entitled to vote should not be voting.”
