Supporters of a Voter ID ballot initiative are asking a court to order Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to re-write how the question is worded.
A lawsuit filed Monday in Cumberland County Superior Court accuses Bellows of writing a "deliberately confusing" ballot question because she opposes requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls. The lawsuit also accuses Bellows of "obscuring the initiative's primary aims by stressing everything other than the voter identification requirements."
Bellows, meanwhile, said she followed the law when crafting the wording and pointed out that the proponents of the voter ID initiative didn't submit comments on a draft version of the question.
The title of the ballot question is "An Act to Require an Individual to Present Photographic Identification for the Purpose of Voting." Yet Alex Titcomb, campaign manager of Voter ID for ME and the lead petitioner in the lawsuit, pointed out that photo ID isn't mentioned until the very end of a long ballot question. Instead, the question focuses largely on the other proposed changes to Maine's voting process.
"It shows bias that they are trying to bring attention to minor things . . . and then decrease and hide the main change in election law here in Maine — the requirement of a photo voter ID," Titcomb said. "Having it last, it could influence the outcome because voters, you know, may not get that far into the question before they circle a yes or no."
The voter ID initiative was spearheaded by Titcomb, Republican Rep. Laurel Libby of Auburn and two political action committees that they lead: Dinner Table Action and For Our Future. The groups organized a grassroots petition drive that gathered more than 170,000 signatures from Maine residents, which was well above the roughly 68,000 needed to qualify for the ballot.
Since then, Voter ID for ME has received $500,000 from the Republican State Leadership Committee and is likely to receive additional support from other national organizations that support conservative candidates and causes.
The photo ID issue is one of two referendum questions that will appear on the November ballot.
The referendum, if enacted by voters, would make multiple changes to state election law beyond requiring a photo ID. It would would repeal a new law allowing voters to sign up to have automatic delivery of absentee ballots. The initiative also proposes eliminating two days of absentee voting, prohibiting voters from requesting an absentee ballot via telephone and limiting municipalities to one drop box for absentee ballots.
Opponents of the initiative are already focusing heavily on those other potential changes beyond the voter ID requirement. Roughly three dozen states require some form of voter identification verification at the polls, although only 10 strictly require a photo ID. While supporters say such measures are important for ensuring election integrity, opponents say photo ID requirements disenfranchise voters less likely to have a driver's license, such as the elderly, minorities and lower-income people without cars.
The final wording of the ballot question from Bellows office reads: "Do you want to change Maine election laws to eliminate two days of absentee voting, prohibit requests for absentee ballots by phone or family members, end ongoing absentee voter status for seniors and people with disabilities, ban prepaid postage on absentee ballot return envelopes, limit the number of drop boxes, require voters to show certain photo ID before voting, and make other changes to our elections?”
In an interview, Bellows said the initiative proposes 27 changes to both in-person and absentee voting. She said her job was to distill those multiple provisions into a concise ballot question that is understandable to voters.
"I challenge Dinner Table Action to name one provision in the question that wasn't in the law that they proposed," Bellows said. "If they didn't want the provisions in the question, they shouldn't have put them in their initiative."
A draft version of the ballot question placed the photo ID requirement at the beginning of the question. Her office received more than 300 public comments on the initial proposed wording. And Bellows said she ultimately re-arranged the order in response to some of that feedback. She also noted that neither Titcomb nor any of the other four plaintiffs in the lawsuit submitted comments on the draft question.
"As secretary of state, my job is to draft a question, put it out to the people, hear comments back . . . and then make any changes based on the comments in the public comment period, which is what I did," Bellows said. Bellows also plans to seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 2026.
But the lawsuit describes the ballot question language as purposely misleading and overly wordy.
"The ballot question process has one simple instruction to the secretary: 'ask a clear question about whether the voter wishes to approve proposed legislation of which the voter is presumed to be already aware,'" reads the complaint. "It is not an invitation for partisan officials to meddle with citizen initiatives through awful wording."
The court has until June 16 to consider the group's request. In 2023, a Superior Court judge ordered Bellows' office to re-word a ballot question that sought to force Maine's two largest electric utilities to sell their assets to a new consumer-owned utility. The court said some of the language in the original question could be confusing or misleading to voters.
