A box of blank Maine absentee ballot return envelopes, part of a shipment of sensitive election materials that never arrived at the state’s Bureau of Corporations, Elections, and Commissions, was delivered to a residential house in Cambridge, Maryland.
That house is the listed headquarters address for the Center for Civic Design, a left-wing election-design nonprofit with documented funding ties to George Soros-backed grantmakers and the Arabella Advisors network, as well as direct connections to Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows.
State investigative records obtained by The Maine Wire and detailed in reporting by Steve Robinson show detectives recovered 498 of the 500 missing envelopes from the group. The investigation was closed without determining how or why the package was redirected. UPS told authorities a subpoena would be required for additional tracking and surveillance records.
The Attorney General’s office concluded there was not enough information to issue one. The case was marked closed pending further information, with officials concluding the reason for the redirection “remains speculative.” Bellows never publicly announced the end of the probe.
On September 10, 2025, Adam Graphic Corp. of North Attleboro, Massachusetts, shipped 62 boxes, each containing 500 blank absentee voter ballot return envelopes, to Maine election officials in Augusta.
By the next day, the elections office had received 61 of the boxes; one was missing. Around September 13, the box arrived at the Center for Civic Design’s Cambridge address, marked return-to-sender from a UPS facility in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.
According to The Maine Wire, a CCD employee later reported receiving roughly 100 envelopes and securing the package. Detectives counted 498.
The state’s printer said CCD was not a customer and had not been the intended recipient. Officials later confirmed the recovered box matched the missing shipment.
This is the same period in which a Newburgh, Maine, resident discovered 250 authentic absentee ballots packed into an Amazon delivery box at her home, an incident first exposed by The Robinson Report.
This box of Maine absentee ballot return envelopes was shipped to a residential house in Maryland.
The house happens to be the listed HQ for a Soros-funded electioneering non-profit.
Maine’s AG closed the investigation with no answers as to how it happened… https://t.co/UXFVlk2JFD
— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) October 26, 2026
Bellows initially vowed to pursue the “bad actors” responsible for what was described as one of the worst election security breaches in decades. Neither case produced a public accounting that identified how the materials left the controlled chain of custody.
The Center for Civic Design is a Maryland-based 501(c)(3) that works on ballot design and election administration processes. Tax filings show New Venture Fund grants of $138,000 to the group in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Additional support has come from the Democracy Fund and the MacArthur Foundation.
New Venture Fund sits within the Arabella Advisors network, which has long received substantial funding from Soros foundations. CCD’s executive leadership has included individuals with prior roles at Arabella.
The group has longstanding operational ties to Maine’s election apparatus: Bellows, while a state lawmaker, co-sponsored automatic voter registration legislation that CCD helped develop, and the nonprofit later tested Maine’s materials.
Bellows and her office stonewalled for months on naming the recipient. In a January hearing before the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, Bellows and Deputy Secretary Julie Flynn could not recall the organization’s name.
A Freedom of Access Act request filed in February was not answered for 228 days; the name was disclosed only in late September 2026, weeks before the current election. Ranking Republican lawmakers said they were ignored when they sought the information directly.
Bellows has blamed UPS for delivery failures and announced a switch to another carrier, but the investigative records show the state did not pursue the subpoena route that UPS said was required for deeper records.
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