Maine Democrats are fast-tracking former state Senate President Troy Jackson as their new Senate nominee after the primary winner imploded over a sexual assault allegation — and a technical glitch at a county delegate meeting left ordinary party members wondering if the fix was already in.

The stakes are real: 601 delegates will gather in Bangor on July 25 to pick a replacement candidate to face Republican Sen. Susan Collins, and Jackson's slate captured nearly every delegate slot up for grabs in county meetings over the weekend. Shenna Bellows, the Maine Secretary of State, dropped out Sunday. Nirav Shah, the former head of the state CDC, suspended his campaign hours later. Jackson is the last man standing.

The original primary winner, Graham Platner, abruptly ended his campaign last week after an allegation of sexual assault, which he denied. NBC News and NBC10 Boston both noted the allegation; neither outlet pressed further on the timeline or the party's vetting process that allowed Platner to win the primary in the first place.

All three top Democrats — Jackson, Bellows, and Shah — previously ran for governor and lost. All three support Medicare for All and abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That's the agenda the Maine Democratic machine wants to send against Collins: government-run healthcare and open borders.

At the Oxford County Democrats' meeting in South Paris, the process didn't run clean. Delegate candidate Jacob Eveleth Jr. said he was cleared to be on the ballot but was absent from the ballots provided to over 500 in-person and virtual voters. The Maine Democratic Party couldn't find a solution. "Well, that's the party," Eveleth said. "Frustration is all I'm feeling." The Portland Press Herald reported that some attendees "openly wondered how they could trust the Democrats' process given such a technical glitch."

County party chair Bruce Bryant praised the online voting tool used to boost participation, saying it let people vote from their phones during a one-hour window. Convenient, sure. But when the system drops a candidate from the ballot and the state party can't fix it, convenience starts to look like control.

Jackson, for his part, sounded like a man who knows the deal is done. "If we have a day like [Saturday], the rest of the candidates will drop out and we'll just be getting the nomination next week," he told reporters. He said he'd heard from a couple of candidates who "pretty much" suggested they'd end their campaigns. Shah, before suspending, argued he was more electable statewide — noting Jackson finished third in the primary. The delegates didn't care.

NBC10 Boston and NBC News ran nearly identical copy on Bellows' exit, quoting her statement that "Donald Trump's attacks on our democracy are only accelerating" as her reason for staying in the Secretary of State's office. The outlets framed her departure as a noble act of public service. A simpler read: she saw the delegate count and got out before the embarrassment.

The question now is whether a candidate who finished third in the primary, running on abolish-ICE and Medicare-for-All, can beat a four-term incumbent in a state that just re-elected Collins. The party machine has spoken. Maine voters get the final say in November.