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Election integrity

The sanctityof the vote.

Every eligible citizen should be able to cast a ballot, and a clerk should be able to know it was that citizen. Those are one promise, not two sides of a fight. This is our position. It is not a claim about what most Mainers already think.

What Maine does now

Access is already broad. Identification is not asked of everyone.

The Secretary of State tells a registered voter: “If I am registered to vote in Maine, I can vote. I do not need to show ID to get a ballot.” The same page says someone who is not yet registered may register on Election Day and vote, and must show ID and proof of where they live.

Any registered voter may vote by absentee ballot with no reason required. The ballot has to be back with the municipal clerk by 8 p.m. on Election Day. Maine law lets a municipality install a secured drop box for those ballots. It does not require every town to have one. A drop box has to be locked, labeled, and monitored, and closed at 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Sources: Maine Secretary of State, Your Right to Vote in Maine; Maine Secretary of State, Absentee voting guide; 21-A M.R.S. §752-B, secured drop boxes for absentee ballots

What we want

A free ID, and the doors kept open.

  1. An ID at no charge.

    A state identification card, free of charge, for any citizen who needs one to vote. The cost of an ID should never be the thing that keeps a citizen out.

  2. Ask for it.

    Identification when a ballot is issued, for the voter who already has a free way to get it.

  3. Keep mail-in voting.

    No-excuse absentee ballots stay. A citizen who cannot stand in line on Election Day still gets a ballot.

  4. Keep drop boxes.

    Secured drop boxes stay where towns offer them, under the rules the statute already sets.

  5. Every eligible citizen.

    Nothing in this is a reason to turn away a citizen who is eligible. A challenged ballot, help marking a ballot, and a line that is still open at 8 p.m. stay too.

We are not claiming a poll. We have not cited one on this page, because we are not willing to say most Mainers agree until we can point at the survey.

Source: Maine Secretary of State, Your Right to Vote in Maine

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Same side of the room.

Republican, Democrat, or independent, we're Mainers first.

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