The Department of Justice is investigating CCTV video from Lewiston City Hall that appears to show dozens of instances of NGO workers — operating as "interpreters" — coaching illiterate Somalis on how to vote and even filling out ballots
for them.
The shocking footage was obtained by The Maine Wire under the Freedom of Access Act and shows left-wing NGOs running an industrial-scale ballot stuffing scheme, using non-English-speaking migrants to obtain ballots and then instructing them on how to vote a party line ticket for Democrats.
"We review all evidence concerning complaints of voter intimidation and election interference, including the video from Lewiston's early voting at City Hall," U.S. Attorney for Maine Andrew Benson told The Robinson Report.
"We will not tolerate threats to the integrity of our elections, and we look forward to working with the Attorney General's Office and the Secretary of State's office to defend our democracy," said Benson.
When videos and images showing irregular behavior by the alleged Somali translators first went viral last week, Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline quickly moved to block photojournalists from documenting the violations election officials would later disrupt multiple times.
Sheline, who spent $40,000 of his own money to win the $7,000 mayoral job, has been an unambiguous devotee to the narrow agenda of the Darod/Ogaden clan of Somalis that dominates the migrant NGO world in Lewiston.
Sheline's bid to limit journalists' ability to document election shenanigans, however, did not cover the city's own CCTV cameras, which captured 140 hours of electioneering so tawdry it would have made Boss Tweed blush.
The CCTV video was obtained under Maine's Freedom of Access Act and covers the period of early in-person voting at City Hall, which began on Oct. 13.
Lewiston has been in the national spotlight since The Maine Wire published photographs by reporter Jon Fetherston. The photos raised questions about whether the dozen or more Somali NGO staffers working the early voting room were translating ballots or coaching voters on how to vote for Democrats.
Under Maine law, voters may request a translator, but there are strict rules as to what aides can and cannot do when it comes to assisting voters. Translators are not allowed to offer assistance but must wait until assistance is requested, and they are not allowed to influence voters' choices. The translators are not allowed to mark up a ballot, and they cannot approach or interrupt a voter who is already in the booth.
As is evident from the CCTV video, virtually every one of these rules was violated over and over again by a small cadre of political activists who can be seen shepherding illiterate Somali voters through the ballot-casting process.
After the national attention on voting irregularities in Lewiston, the city clerk began disseminating a printout informing the Somali NGO staffers of the rules.
The roughly 140 hours of security camera video only compounds concerns over fairness in Lewiston's elections, revealing that more than 200 apparently non-English-speaking Somalis voted with the assistance — or coaching — of the handful of Somali NGO staffers who were stationed throughout City Hall for almost the entire early voting period.
On Oct. 20, Fetherston said he had seen translators "talking to people and pointing at the ballots," and "a couple of people actually touching the ballots."
In another segment, a woman with a backpack appears to point to items on a voter's ballot while a second translator walks over and watches. Multiple other segments show the NGO staffers manipulating and even filling out ballots — a clear violation of state law.
Two Republican candidates for local office in Lewiston, who've both been observing the election at City Hall, have also observed troubling signs that the election in Lewiston isn't on the level.
‼️WOW: State Rep. Candidate Janet Beaudoin reveals that a foreign-language interpreter asked her if she was a Democrat and said that if she was, he would instruct the voters he was aiding to vote for her...
— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) October 20, 2026
Lewiston needs a full investigation into the electioneering that's… pic.twitter.com/y9PZwQh4TM
Lewiston City Councilor Bret Martel, the Republican running in House District 95, told MWTV that 12 to 20 people came into that hallway holding issue signs. He said complaints had already forced him to remove a plain paper name tag and to pull the campaign magnets off his truck.
Fetherston said three complaints have been filed with Lewiston police over the MPA's activity at City Hall and the conduct of translators.
A warden later told one interpreter to leave the voting area after the interpreter approached a newly arrived voter who hadn't asked for help, according to City Clerk Kathy Montejo's account to Fetherston.
In response to the journalistic exposure of voting irregularities, the left-wing Maine People's Alliance staged a demonstration at City Hall — a militant march through the institution which also appears to have violated Maine's statutes.
Maine law prohibits electioneering within 250 feet of the entrance to any polling place, and the MPA staffers can be seen on video marauding through City Hall with political signs. Those engaged in illicit electioneering include Democratic State Rep. Scott Harriman, who is also a candidate on the ballot in Lewiston.
One sign read "I am voting for my immigrant neighbors." The sign Harriman appears to hold read "I am voting for my community."
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) said her office received complaints of "intrusive filming, photography and harassment of voters," and has said on privately recorded Zoom calls with left-wing activists that her office is investigating The Maine Wire.
With Election Day next Tuesday, the Maine GOP and Republican National Committee response to a brazen display of potentially illegal electioneering has been anemic. While the RNC has claimed to have observers on the ground in Lewiston, none have been seen. Meanwhile, the Maine GOP has sent four press releases this week with identical headlines touting party Chairman Jim Deyermond's recitation of Republican talking points regarding Troy Jackson.
On the other side of the aisle, Maine Democrats have held the governorship and both houses of the Legislature for nearly eight years. Yet despite the benefits of incumbency, they have grown increasingly bellicose in their bid to cling to power in Augusta.
In June 2023, then-House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D), a business partner to Somali State Rep. Deqa Dhalac (D), told a Juneteenth event, "We should be storming the capitol," adding, "really, I'm serious."
The national reckoning over welfare fraud has, in Maine, centered on Lewiston and on one Somali-owned migrant agency with deep connections not only to the Maine Democratic Party but also to the very NGO staffers seen in the CCTV video hustling voters in and out of City Hall.
Following investigative reports from The Robinson Report detailing welfare fraud allegations against the $5 million-per-year Gateway Community Services and its founder, Somali-American refugee Abdullahi Ali, Maine DHHS cut off MaineCare payments to the agency last December.
Although Gateway is now defunct, and Ali is on the lam in Africa, multiple former Gateway staffers continue to operate the political committee Ali and Gateway staffers formed after receiving lucrative no-bid contracts from the Mills Administration.
Those former Gateway staffers include Safiya Khalid, the director of the Community Organizing Alliance, who can be seen in CCTV footage orchestrating the movements of translators and voters, as well as Ahmed Aska Daher, a community health worker for Gateway.
How much of an influence could the Somali diaspora vote have in Lewiston, the Second Congressional District race, or even the U.S. Senate contest between Sen. Susan Collins and Graham Platner's replacement, Democrat Troy Jackson?
To estimate the total diaspora population voting in recent years, The Robinson Report compared Maine's central voter registration data and other commercial data sets to a list of the 50,000 most common Somali names, which found an estimated 4,000 presumable Somalis registered to vote statewide, with approximately 1,300 of those voters providing addresses in Lewiston.
To vote legally in Maine, a person must be a U.S. citizen. For the voters in the video who were not born in the U.S. to be voting legally, they would need to be naturalized citizens. The presence of translators for hundreds of Somali voters raises the question as to how these individuals could be naturalized U.S. citizens if they don't speak English.
Shenna Bellows admits that noncitizens are illegally registered to vote. pic.twitter.com/7hhZBTNtxt
— Steve Robinson (@SteveRob) February 3, 2026
However, there's another alternative. While naturalization normally requires an English test, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) lists a few exceptions. Under the 50/20 exception, an applicant who is 50 or older at the time of filing and has been a green card holder for 20 years is exempt from the English requirement.
Under 55/15, an applicant who is 55 or older and has been a green card holder for 15 years is exempt from the English requirement. Applicants who qualify for 50/20 or 55/15 still must take the civics test, but may take it in their native language with an interpreter they bring to the interview.
Under 65/20, an applicant who is 65 or older with 20 years as a permanent resident gets "special consideration regarding the civics requirement."
With Form N-648, an applicant who can't meet the English and civics requirements "because of a physical or developmental disability or a mental impairment" can request a medical exception. A licensed medical or osteopathic doctor or a licensed clinical psychologist must complete the form.
A voter who naturalized under one of those exceptions may be a citizen and still be unable to read an English ballot. Under section 672, that voter may ask for an aide.
So the more than 200 illiterate Somali voters seen on CCTV casting ballots with the help of one or more NGO staffers could well be naturalized U.S. citizens provided they applied for naturalization and were approved for one of those exceptions. According to USCIS data, the federal government hands out anywhere from 150,000–200,000 English proficiency exemptions in a given year.
In Maine, the rate of naturalizations has been modest: roughly 900–1,400 per year in recent years, according to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics.
Maine might be the only state where the Democrat Secretary of State openly admits that there are noncitizens registered to vote — and then refuses to turn over voter records to the Department of Justice — but it's not the only state where noncitizens on the ballot have become a political fight.
On Oct. 26, the Justice Department announced charges against 48 aliens in Pennsylvania, California, Florida, New York and Nevada for illegal voting, fraudulent registration and related crimes.
On Oct. 16, the department announced charges against 16 more in North Carolina, New York and Idaho. On Oct. 29, it announced 18 more indictments in North Carolina, bringing that state's total to 30 charged this year.
On Sept. 30, the department announced that a federal grand jury in Minnesota had indicted 10 foreign nationals, one of whom allegedly voted in this August's primary.
25
DOJ Investigating Security Video Showing Somali "Translators" Coaching Voters
U.S. Attorney Andrew Benson says his office is reviewing video from Lewiston City Hall that shows Somali translators coaching hundreds of illiterate, non-English-speaking voters on how to vote.
just now
The Department of Justice is investigating CCTV video from Lewiston City Hall that appears to show dozens of instances of NGO workers — operating as "interpreters" — coaching illiterate Somalis on how to vote and even filling out ballots for them.
The shocking footage was obtained by The Maine Wire under the Freedom of Access Act and shows left-wing NGOs running an industrial-scale ballot stuffing scheme, using non-English-speaking migrants to obtain ballots and then instructing them on how to vote a party line ticket for Democrats.
"We review all evidence concerning complaints of voter intimidation and election interference, including the video from Lewiston's early voting at City Hall," U.S. Attorney for Maine Andrew Benson told The Robinson Report.
"We will not tolerate threats to the integrity of our elections, and we look forward to working with the Attorney General's Office and the Secretary of State's office to defend our democracy," said Benson.
This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
When videos and images showing irregular behavior by the alleged Somali translators first went viral last week, Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline quickly moved to block photojournalists from documenting the violations election officials would later disrupt multiple times.
Sheline, who spent $40,000 of his own money to win the $7,000 mayoral job, has been an unambiguous devotee to the narrow agenda of the Darod/Ogaden clan of Somalis that dominates the migrant NGO world in Lewiston.
Sheline's bid to limit journalists' ability to document election shenanigans, however, did not cover the city's own CCTV cameras, which captured 140 hours of electioneering so tawdry it would have made Boss Tweed blush.
The CCTV video was obtained under Maine's Freedom of Access Act and covers the period of early in-person voting at City Hall, which began on Oct. 13.
Lewiston has been in the national spotlight since The Maine Wire published photographs by reporter Jon Fetherston. The photos raised questions about whether the dozen or more Somali NGO staffers working the early voting room were translating ballots or coaching voters on how to vote for Democrats.
We can't do this work without subscribers like you. Sign up today and maybe I'll buy Fetherston a bulletproof vest.
Under Maine law, voters may request a translator, but there are strict rules as to what aides can and cannot do when it comes to assisting voters. Translators are not allowed to offer assistance but must wait until assistance is requested, and they are not allowed to influence voters' choices. The translators are not allowed to mark up a ballot, and they cannot approach or interrupt a voter who is already in the booth.
As is evident from the CCTV video, virtually every one of these rules was violated over and over again by a small cadre of political activists who can be seen shepherding illiterate Somali voters through the ballot-casting process.
After the national attention on voting irregularities in Lewiston, the city clerk began disseminating a printout informing the Somali NGO staffers of the rules.
The roughly 140 hours of security camera video only compounds concerns over fairness in Lewiston's elections, revealing that more than 200 apparently non-English-speaking Somalis voted with the assistance — or coaching — of the handful of Somali NGO staffers who were stationed throughout City Hall for almost the entire early voting period.
On Oct. 20, Fetherston said he had seen translators "talking to people and pointing at the ballots," and "a couple of people actually touching the ballots."
In another segment, a woman with a backpack appears to point to items on a voter's ballot while a second translator walks over and watches. Multiple other segments show the NGO staffers manipulating and even filling out ballots — a clear violation of state law.
Two Republican candidates for local office in Lewiston, who've both been observing the election at City Hall, have also observed troubling signs that the election in Lewiston isn't on the level.
Janet Beaudoin, the Republican running against Democratic Rep. Scott Harriman in House District 94, told the City Council that an interpreter said he'd tell the person he was helping to vote for her if she were a Democrat.
Lewiston City Councilor Bret Martel, the Republican running in House District 95, told MWTV that 12 to 20 people came into that hallway holding issue signs. He said complaints had already forced him to remove a plain paper name tag and to pull the campaign magnets off his truck.
Fetherston said three complaints have been filed with Lewiston police over the MPA's activity at City Hall and the conduct of translators.
A warden later told one interpreter to leave the voting area after the interpreter approached a newly arrived voter who hadn't asked for help, according to City Clerk Kathy Montejo's account to Fetherston.
In response to the journalistic exposure of voting irregularities, the left-wing Maine People's Alliance staged a demonstration at City Hall — a militant march through the institution which also appears to have violated Maine's statutes.
Maine law prohibits electioneering within 250 feet of the entrance to any polling place, and the MPA staffers can be seen on video marauding through City Hall with political signs. Those engaged in illicit electioneering include Democratic State Rep. Scott Harriman, who is also a candidate on the ballot in Lewiston.
BREAKING: Security Video Shows Maine Democrats Brazenly Violating Election Laws in Lewiston Copy link
One sign read "I am voting for my immigrant neighbors." The sign Harriman appears to hold read "I am voting for my community."
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) said her office received complaints of "intrusive filming, photography and harassment of voters," and has said on privately recorded Zoom calls with left-wing activists that her office is investigating The Maine Wire.
With Election Day next Tuesday, the Maine GOP and Republican National Committee response to a brazen display of potentially illegal electioneering has been anemic. While the RNC has claimed to have observers on the ground in Lewiston, none have been seen. Meanwhile, the Maine GOP has sent four press releases this week with identical headlines touting party Chairman Jim Deyermond's recitation of Republican talking points regarding Troy Jackson.
On the other side of the aisle, Maine Democrats have held the governorship and both houses of the Legislature for nearly eight years. Yet despite the benefits of incumbency, they have grown increasingly bellicose in their bid to cling to power in Augusta.
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In June 2023, then-House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D), a business partner to Somali State Rep. Deqa Dhalac (D), told a Juneteenth event, "We should be storming the capitol," adding, "really, I'm serious."
The national reckoning over welfare fraud has, in Maine, centered on Lewiston and on one Somali-owned migrant agency with deep connections not only to the Maine Democratic Party but also to the very NGO staffers seen in the CCTV video hustling voters in and out of City Hall.
Following investigative reports from The Robinson Report detailing welfare fraud allegations against the $5 million-per-year Gateway Community Services and its founder, Somali-American refugee Abdullahi Ali, Maine DHHS cut off MaineCare payments to the agency last December.
Although Gateway is now defunct, and Ali is on the lam in Africa, multiple former Gateway staffers continue to operate the political committee Ali and Gateway staffers formed after receiving lucrative no-bid contracts from the Mills Administration.
Those former Gateway staffers include Safiya Khalid, the director of the Community Organizing Alliance, who can be seen in CCTV footage orchestrating the movements of translators and voters, as well as Ahmed Aska Daher, a community health worker for Gateway.
How much of an influence could the Somali diaspora vote have in Lewiston, the Second Congressional District race, or even the U.S. Senate contest between Sen. Susan Collins and Graham Platner's replacement, Democrat Troy Jackson?
To estimate the total diaspora population voting in recent years, The Robinson Report compared Maine's central voter registration data and other commercial data sets to a list of the 50,000 most common Somali names, which found an estimated 4,000 presumable Somalis registered to vote statewide, with approximately 1,300 of those voters providing addresses in Lewiston.
To vote legally in Maine, a person must be a U.S. citizen. For the voters in the video who were not born in the U.S. to be voting legally, they would need to be naturalized citizens. The presence of translators for hundreds of Somali voters raises the question as to how these individuals could be naturalized U.S. citizens if they don't speak English.
One possible explanation is that they are not, in fact, U.S. citizens, given Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows' on-camera admission that she's aware that noncitizens are registered to vote in Maine.
However, there's another alternative. While naturalization normally requires an English test, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) lists a few exceptions. Under the 50/20 exception, an applicant who is 50 or older at the time of filing and has been a green card holder for 20 years is exempt from the English requirement.
Under 55/15, an applicant who is 55 or older and has been a green card holder for 15 years is exempt from the English requirement. Applicants who qualify for 50/20 or 55/15 still must take the civics test, but may take it in their native language with an interpreter they bring to the interview.
Under 65/20, an applicant who is 65 or older with 20 years as a permanent resident gets "special consideration regarding the civics requirement."
With Form N-648, an applicant who can't meet the English and civics requirements "because of a physical or developmental disability or a mental impairment" can request a medical exception. A licensed medical or osteopathic doctor or a licensed clinical psychologist must complete the form.
A voter who naturalized under one of those exceptions may be a citizen and still be unable to read an English ballot. Under section 672, that voter may ask for an aide.
So the more than 200 illiterate Somali voters seen on CCTV casting ballots with the help of one or more NGO staffers could well be naturalized U.S. citizens provided they applied for naturalization and were approved for one of those exceptions. According to USCIS data, the federal government hands out anywhere from 150,000–200,000 English proficiency exemptions in a given year.
In Maine, the rate of naturalizations has been modest: roughly 900–1,400 per year in recent years, according to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics.
Maine might be the only state where the Democrat Secretary of State openly admits that there are noncitizens registered to vote — and then refuses to turn over voter records to the Department of Justice — but it's not the only state where noncitizens on the ballot have become a political fight.
On Oct. 26, the Justice Department announced charges against 48 aliens in Pennsylvania, California, Florida, New York and Nevada for illegal voting, fraudulent registration and related crimes.
On Oct. 16, the department announced charges against 16 more in North Carolina, New York and Idaho. On Oct. 29, it announced 18 more indictments in North Carolina, bringing that state's total to 30 charged this year.
On Sept. 30, the department announced that a federal grand jury in Minnesota had indicted 10 foreign nationals, one of whom allegedly voted in this August's primary.
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