AUGUSTA (NEWS CENTER Maine) — After more than a week, the Democratic Party has its nominee for governor. The secretary of state's office announced Wednesday, eight days after election night, that Janet Mills had won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
After four rounds of ranked-choice tabulation, Maine's attorney general unofficially received slightly more than 54 percent of the vote, about 9 percent more than runner-up Adam Cote, who got nearly 46 percent of the vote.
Mills will take on Republican candidate Shawn Moody in November. Moody won an outright majority during the first round of voting, thus capturing the nomination on election night.
Related: Janet Mills | Voice of the Voter candidate profile
Related: 2018 Maine Primary Election Results
About 900 votes were not included in the computer system's final tabulation, but Secretary of State Matt Dunlap assured those at the counting center that the votes would be included in a final tally.
State officials worked more than a week after the primary to gather and count the ballots from all of Maine municipalities, tabulating the results using ranked-choice voting (RCV), a method being used for the first time nationwide in congressional and statewide races.
Officials spent Tuesday retrieving ballots from a handful of towns because the scanned sheets were illegible and verifying all of the results.
Voters approved RCV by referendum in 2016.