Maine voters rejected a referendum on Tuesday that would have required a photo ID to cast a ballot and that proposed multiple changes to Maine’s increasingly popular absentee voting process.
The Associated Press called the race less than two hours after polls closed as early returns showed strong opposition to Question 1 in more left-leaning coastal Maine but also in some areas of rural western and central Maine. Question 1 was failing 39% to 61% with more than half of the statewide votes counted, according to the AP.
The lopsided outcome represents the latest political defeat for conservatives on an issue that they have been pursuing in Maine for more than a decade. Conservative activists collected more than 170,000 petition signatures to place the issue on the statewide ballot this year after repeatedly failing to get voter ID bills through the Maine Legislature.
But the “overwhelming grassroots support” that campaign organizers said they witnessed during the petition drive failed to carry through to Election Day. Instead, the campaign struggled to compete against better-funded opponents who seized on the proposed changes to absentee balloting as they portrayed Question 1 as an underhanded attempt to disenfranchise voters and make voting more difficult.
“It's a great result tonight, but it's really a great result for the people of Maine who have demonstrated their confidence in the security and safety of our elections," said David Farmer, campaign manager for the group Save Maine Absentee Voting, which led the opposition to Question 1. "They turned out in great numbers for an off-year election. And I'm just really happy that they took the time to learn about the issue and to cast their ballot for participation and voting rights."
Alex Titcomb, campaign manager for the Voter ID for ME campaign, said he was disappointed in the outcome but proud of the work of his grassroots coalition. Titcomb accused the opposition of making false claims that Question 1 would end absentee voting and suggested that voter ID will become law in Maine at some point despite Tuesday's vote.
"Unfortunately it wasn't today," Titcomb said. "But because the policy is so popular, we have confidence that it will pass in the future."
The campaign had clear partisan overtones throughout. Republicans described Question 1 as an election integrity measure. Democratic leaders and left-leaning organizations, meanwhile, portrayed it as an attempt at "voter suppression."
“Once again, Maine people have affirmed their faith in our free, fair, and secure elections, in this case by rejecting a direct attempt to restrict voting rights," said Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who is seeking her party's nomination for U.S. Senate next year. "Maine has long had one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the nation, in good part due to safe absentee voting — and Maine people tonight have said they want to keep it that way.”
Thirty-six other states already require voters to show some form of identity, although those laws vary. Question 1 would have added Maine to the roughly two dozen states that require a photo ID — in Maine’s case, either a driver’s license or nondriver ID card issued by the state, a passport or passport card, or an official military or veteran’s ID card. Voters requesting an absentee ballot would have been required to provide their driver’s license number or submit a photocopy of an approved ID to their local election clerk when applying for a ballot.
Opponents predicted the photo ID provisions would disenfranchise voters who are less likely to have a driver’s license, such as the elderly, minorities and disabled Mainers. Supporters, meanwhile, said requiring an ID to vote would reduce the the risk of voter fraud.
But those voter ID provisions took up just two of the 11 pages of statutory language needed to implement the proposed law. The other nine pages were devoted to changes to the absentee balloting process.
Those proposed changes included: eliminating two days of absentee balloting, ending the automatic delivery of absentee ballots to some voters each election, limiting municipalities to one ballot drop box, and no longer allowing absentee ballot requests via phone or requests on behalf of an immediate family member.
Question 1 supporters said those changes would improve the process and help to avoid future issues as more and more Mainers choose to vote absentee rather than cast an in-person ballot on Election Day. But opponents accused the conservative campaigns behind Question 1 of trying to undermine broad participation in elections.
Lori Koester of Kennebunk echoed those concerns about the absentee balloting provisions in explaining her vote against Question 1.
"I'm concerned about elderly people that aren't able to get here to vote, people having jobs that don't allow them to vote during the necessary hours," Koester said.
But Jack Fowler of Biddeford voted for Question 1 because he supports requiring a photo ID to cast a ballot.
"Put it this way, I just dropped my wife off at Logan Airport at 5 a.m. and she cannot get on that Delta Flight without a photo ID," Fowler said. "I think it makes sense for our most precious right here in America."
Many voters have embraced absentee balloting, especially since the COVID pandemic. During last year’s presidential election, roughly 45% of Maine voters cast their ballots by mail, deposited them in a ballot drop-box or cast an in-person, early ballot at their town office.
Turnout was expected to be significantly lower during Tuesday’s off-year election. But as of Tuesday afternoon, more than 146,000 voters had requested absentee ballots. Roughly half of those were registered as Democrats while 22% were Republican and 26% were unenrolled.
The group spearheading the Question 1 campaign, Voter ID for ME, was an offshoot of the conservative political action committee, Dinner Table Action, led by Titcomb and state Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn. Dinner Table Action and a related group, For Our Future, have become prolific fundraisers in Maine’s conservative activist scene in recent years.
Voter ID for ME raised and spent more than $600,000 on the campaign. The vast majority of that money — $525,000 — came from the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national organization that works to elect GOP candidates to state-level offices.
But the “Yes on 1” campaign was outspent by a coalition of groups opposed to voter ID and the proposed changes to absentee balloting. The largest and best-funded opposition group was Save Maine Absentee Voting ballot question committee, which was a coalition of more than 30 separate organizations that included large labor unions, ACLU-Maine and League of Women Voters.
Save Maine Absentee Voting spent more than $1.5 million on the campaign, according to the most recent data. The top donors to the group included several national labor unions, including the National Education Association and the Service Employees International Union. The Democratic Governor’s Association and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also spent more than $300,000 combined to defeat Question 1, highlighting the partisan arguments for and against the measure.
