Voters in Lincoln County recently received phone calls and texts from an organization claiming to be “Public Opinion Research.” The communications asked them to respond to a poll about the race for Maine Senate District 13 between Dana Dow and Chloe Maxmin. Recipients who agreed to respond to the poll were surprised to hear its biased questions, which expressed positive opinions about Senator Dow and negative opinions regarding Representative Maxmin.

A poll that expresses such opinions and asks respondents to agree is known as a “push poll,” because it is attempting to push the recipients toward an acceptance of those opinions. In fact, a push poll isn’t a poll at all, it is a form of negative political campaigning. Push polls are not illegal in Maine, but they are subject to the same disclosure and reporting requirements as political advertising and may be subject to further registration requirements if the statutory definition of “push poll” is also met.

The Lincoln County Democratic Committee (LCDC) learned about the push poll from those comments and screen shots from upset voters. Public Opinion Research is not recognized by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, and a call to the listed number, (207) 280-8543, was answered by a computer-generated recording with no option to speak with an actual person. Concerned that this was an illegal attempt to sway voters, the LCDC brought a complaint to the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices.

The complaint read in part, “This fraudulent intervention into the SD13 election process is a fake poll that explicitly aims to influence voters with biased opinion and misinformation extolling the Republican candidate, Dana Dow, and attacking the Democratic candidate, Chloe Maxmin. Our country has learned a great deal over the past four years about how dangerous these illegitimate misinformation efforts are and how effective they can be.”

The five-member commission heard the case on Sept. 30 and voted unanimously for the motion, “We find there are sufficient grounds to conduct an investigation, and that an investigation be conducted as recommended on page 11 of the Ethics Commission staff report.”

“The culprits of this slanderous form of negative campaigning are also failing to disclose who approved those political advertising messages, who paid for them, and even the true identity of who is conducting the polls. Which is why the actors hiding behind that secrecy must be discovered and punished,” said LCDC chair, Chris Johnson. “This sort of nasty campaigning doesn’t belong in Lincoln County, and it doesn’t belong in Maine. Our voters deserve better.”