AUGUSTA — Results in the ranked-choice runoffs in Maine’s key primary races arrived early Friday morning after a lengthy final push from state officials.

Following hours of counting and multiple delays, the winners eventually began to be revealed around 1:40 a.m. By that point, the process had stretched well beyond a two-hour notice issued to media and candidates around 9:15 p.m.

Final preparations had begun just before the clock hit 12 a.m., then hit a logjam due to a spreadsheet error that was caused by a missing period next to a candidate’s initial in the 2nd Congressional District race, Chief Deputy Secretary of State Kate McBrien said.

Then, as officials appeared ready to announce the results, the printer jammed.

In the Republican primary for governor — the first race of the five announced — attorney and former federal government official Bobby Charles emerged victorious in an eight-way race.

Soon after, officials revealed his Democratic opponent: Hannah Pingree, the former Maine House speaker, who surpassed election night leader Nirav Shah. She and Charles will face independent candidate Rick Bennett in November.

State Auditor Matt Dunlap was then announced as the winner of Democratic primary for the 2nd Congressional District, overcoming an initial lead by state Sen. Joe Baldacci. Dunlap will face former Republican Gov. Paul LePage this fall in the race to succeed U.S. Rep. Jared Golden.

And to round out the night, officials revealed the winners of two Republican primaries in state legislative races.

In the state Senate District 4 race, Chad Perkins was declared the winner. Joseph Guerin finished second and Zachary Wood was third, with Gregory Pierce the first candidate eliminated from the ranked-choice runoff. District 4 covers Piscataquis County and a small chunk of Penobscot County.

And in the House District 58 race, Dexter Bridges won, followed by runner-up Lawrence Bessey and Jeffrey Harris. The 58th District includes the central Maine communities of Belgrade, Fayette, Mount Vernon, New Sharon, Rome and Vienna.

‘JUST TAKES TIME’

There wasn’t any one thing that kept delaying staff from delivering results, McBrien said Thursday.

“The most important part of ranked-choice voting tabulation is that all the information is in and it’s correct and that we can verify that, so that when we run the ranked-choice tabulation, we’re running it from the correct information,” she said. “That just takes time.”

Ranked-choice runoffs typically take days or weeks to complete because the process requires bringing voting data and ballots from around the state to a central location for them to be compiled, reviewed and have the ranked-choice methodology applied. 

That work was done over the space of more than five days at the Maine Department of Public Safety headquarters in Augusta.

Officials started their work last Friday. By Thursday afternoon, some candidates were growing impatient.

Charles, who had the most first-choice votes in the Republican primary on election night and eventually emerged as the winner, criticized the ranked-choice process as “simply too slow and too complicated.”

“It is breaking down trust and integrity in our electoral process, and that is unacceptable,” Charles said in a written statement.

In addition to spreadsheet errors and printer jams, a few other hiccups in the process circulated around acquiring the right results. The city of Biddeford initially sent a thumb drive with local results instead of state results, while Bath failed to include one of its thumb drives. In a third community, Bowdoinham, a thumb drive couldn’t be read, so law enforcement had to travel to the town to pick up the paper ballots containing results. 

McBrien said such interruptions are typical. 

“With 487 municipalities around the state, there’s always an instance where, when we go to pick up the information, somebody forgets one little piece: a flash drive here, or the right report there,” she said. “It’s not unusual to have to go back and get that right information.”

“We want to make sure we’re doing it right and that we give you all the correct information when we run the race,” McBrien added. “So even if it takes a little more time, the integrity of the process is what’s important.”