David Wood lives in Waldoboro. Jordan Wood, who was in contention for the nomination until last Sunday, is his son.

Is it just me or does the supposed locked-up nomination of Troy Jackson to be the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate feel less like a “coronation” and more like a back-room manipulation?

What happened to the open to the open, fair and deliberative process leading up to and including the convention that is to take place this Saturday? We were guaranteed an open process in which voters would be able to assess the candidates in town halls and public debates (on both local and national television), culminating in a convention in which the leading candidates would make their final appeals to uncommitted delegates. That sounds like the essence of democratic process.

Instead, we experienced machine politics running roughshod over what was intended to be an open, fair and deliberative democratic process. There is no question that Jackson was able to harness the volunteer force of the defunct Platner campaign and his losing gubernatorial campaign and essentially take over the county caucuses.

I attended the Lincoln County caucus and experienced it as a wonderful expression of local democracy at work. All the Senate candidates were milling around talking one on one with delegate candidates and others in attendance. I was a delegate candidate and several people approached me to hear my pitch. They were earnestly doing their best to discern which delegate they should vote for. While interested in who I favored, they seemed more interested in hearing that I was open to voting for whomever emerged as the best candidate.

However, by the next day it became evident that the “open” process had been hijacked, exploited and short-circuited by a deliberate and well-organized force to foreclose the democratic process.

As Jackson bragged to the media, and the media uncritically broadcast to the rest of us, Jackson had 90+% of the delegates to Saturday’s convention committed to vote for him. If the other candidates failed to step aside, they would be charged (fueled by the same machine that was handing the nomination to Jackson) with creating chaos and disunity and thereby jeopardizing our ability to defeat Susan Collins.

Over this past week, I thought we were unified — but not behind a single candidate. We were unified by a trust in the promise of the Maine Democratic Party that there would be a fair and open deliberative process that would, as accurately as possible, reflect the will of Maine’s Democratic voters.

So here we are, on the verge of nominating a candidate who performed poorly in the first televised debate, who came in third in Maine’s governor’s race (by 65,000 votes) and who has the implicit endorsement of Graham Platner’s failed campaign — a fact that Republicans will surely exploit. And this is a winning ticket?

What about Nirav Shah? Shah was perhaps the top performer in the first, and now only, debate among the Senate candidates. He most certainly outperformed Jackson. Shah beat Jackson by more than 40,000 votes in a statewide race just weeks ago. He has demonstrated wide support among Maine voters.

The truth of the matter is that we had four leading candidates to consider: Troy Jackson, Nirav Shah, Shenna Bellows and Jordan Wood. All four received over 20% of the vote in their respective primaries and all four demonstrated the ability to run viable campaigns and appeal to a broad base of support.

But we will not get to critically assess a Jackson vs. a Shah or a Wood or a Bellows candidacy because a political machine robbed the people of Maine of that opportunity.

Shame on those we trusted to create a fair and democratic process to resolve this crisis. What we got last weekend was a deeply flawed process easily manipulated by a machine politics clearly rejected in the June primary.

Editor’s note (July 23): The “about the author” information has been updated to reflect the author’s relationship with Jordan Wood.