AUGUSTA, MAINE – Secretary of State Shenna Bellows today spoke out in defense of Maine’s free, safe, and secure elections, highlighting the tremendous work of dedicated nonpartisan elections staff, both at the state and local levels, and pushed back on DOJ demands for private voter data. 

“This is not normal. Mainers are proud of our safe and secure elections, and we see Mainers’ confidence in our elections proven in our high voter turnout,” said Secretary Bellows. “Trump’s DOJ is using its immense federal power to try to intimidate us into turning over protected voter data and changing our voting processes to fit President Trump’s whims. We’re not backing down because we know our hardworking state and local election officials run excellent elections here in Maine.” 

Maine has consistently been a leader in both voter registration and voter turnout. Approximately 92.4% of eligible Mainers are registered to vote. In 2022, Maine led the nation in voter turnout. In 2024, Maine was third in the nation in voter turnout with 74.8%  of our citizen voting age population casting ballots.  

The systems and procedures in place to ensure Maine’s elections are free, fair, and secure include:

• Maine conducts regular voter list maintenance including ongoing removal of voters who have moved, died, or withdrawn their registration.
• In 2023, Maine implemented automatic voter registration at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles which allows voters to update their registration when they update their license information when they move.
• Each month, Maine registrars are provided with death information from Maine’s Bureau of Vital Records.
• Maine is a member of Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization created by and comprised of state election officials from around the United States. Founded in 2012, ERIC is funded and governed by member states. ERIC provides an effective tool for election officials to maintain accurate election rolls.
• Beyond the daily work of voter list maintenance performed by clerks in every Maine town, the Elections Division conducts National Voter Registration Act compliant maintenance efforts. In June 2022, the Division generated a list of over 248,000 voters who had registered to vote prior to November 6, 2018 and not voted between that date and the date of the mailing. As a result of that effort, 180,584 voter records were cancelled in February 2025. This is the most productive voter list maintenance effort conducted by the Elections Division since the implementation of the Central Voter Registration system in 2007.

President Trump’s first administration requested voting data from states and no state complied. In an unprecedented move, this summer the DOJ has expanded the request in an attempt to compile a database of all registered voters across the country, including sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII), without explanation of what the data would be used for, who would have access to it, or how it would be stored. 

“Mainers are known for their independence. As a large rural state, we are all too used to people from away underestimating the will and ability of Maine,” she said. “Washington bureaucrats think they know and can do better – Maine has proven time and time again that we don’t follow, Maine leads.”