Undercover Video Caught 'Translators' Inside Maine Voting Booths — What They Were Doing Sparked An Immediate Warning

The controversy began when Jon Fetherston of the conservative Maine Wire observed and filmed Somali women in hijabs appearing to instruct elderly voters on their ballot choices. According to Breitbart, Fetherston reported that these Somali “translators” were “approaching voters, walking them to a voting booth, and then pointing out who to vote for on the ballot,” conduct that, if accurate, would clearly run afoul of Maine’s election statutes.

The footage and subsequent report on X prompted the Lewiston City Clerk to circulate a formal guide clarifying how translators may legally assist voters. In Maine, a voter may request help from a translator, but the request must originate from the voter, and translators are not permitted to roam the polling place soliciting voters or lingering inside the voting area awaiting potential “clients.”

The clerk further emphasized that translators are strictly barred from making any selections for the voter or handling the ballot at any time. They are required to read the entire ballot and all selections aloud, not merely highlight specific candidates, “read off individual candidate names,” or silently “point to names” on the ballot.

State rules also limit assistance to a single translator inside the booth with any given voter. Yet Fetherston’s photographs from the polling place appeared to show two “translators” crowded into the booth with one elderly voter, a scenario that undermines both privacy and the principle of an independent vote.

Ultimately, poll workers intervened and ordered one “translator” to leave, despite the woman’s insistence that she intended to remain and “help” Somali voters fill out their ballots. The incident underscores the tension between legitimate language assistance and partisan operatives exploiting immigrant communities to steer votes toward Democrat candidates.

Concerns about election integrity in Maine did not end there, as Maine Wire also documented Democrat State Rep. Scott Harriman staging a political demonstration inside an early voting location. The event was reportedly organized by the “extremist, left-wing Soros-funded Maine People’s Alliance” and took place just outside the room where citizens were actively casting ballots.

Maine law explicitly bans electioneering within 250 feet of a polling place, yet the Democrat lawmaker’s rally was held directly outside the voting chamber door, only feet from the machines and the path used by voters entering and exiting. For conservatives who have long warned about lax enforcement of election rules, these episodes will only deepen skepticism about whether officials are willing to apply the law evenly, regardless of party or favored constituency.