Maine voters resoundingly defeated a ballot initiative on Tuesday that would have required them to show a photo ID during future elections and that sought to rollback aspects of the state’s 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 areas but also in pockets of rural Maine. That voting gap widened as results trickled in. And by midnight, Question 1 was failing 36.1% to 63.9% with roughly three-quarters of 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. Opponents of Question 1, meanwhile, described the vote as a victory for voting rights and protecting access to the polls.
“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 opposition coalition called Save Maine Absentee Voting. "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."
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 that they portrayed as an underhanded attempt to disenfranchise voters and make voting more difficult.
Unofficial voting results show Question 1 failing by huge margins along Maine’s left-leaning southern coast, such as in Portland, where 90% of the roughy 25,000 votes cast were in opposition to the initiative. But it also floundered in many rural areas as well, losing more than 60% of the vote in western Maine towns like Newry, Norway and The Forks.
Alex Titcomb, campaign manager for the Voter ID for ME campaign, said he was disappointed in the outcome but not giving up.
“We’re incredibly proud of our grassroots effort and the Mainers that joined in,” Titcomb said.
Titcomb accused the opposition of making false claims that Question 1 would end absentee voting. And he repeated previous accusations that Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, enabled that line of attack by mentioning the voter ID provisions at the end of Question 1 after a list of proposed changes to absentee voting. He also 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."
Thirty-six other states already require voters to show some form of identity. Question 1 would have required voters to present poll workers with a driver’s license, a state-issued nondriver ID card, a passport or passport card, or an official military or veteran’s ID card.
Supporters said requiring an ID to vote would reduce the the risk of voter fraud. Opponents, meanwhile, 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.
While Question 1 supporters focused largely on the voter ID provisions, opponents successfully flipped the narrative by zeroing in on the proposed changes to Maine’s absentee balloting process. Those proposes 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.
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.
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 led by Save Maine Absentee Voting. That coalition included more than 30 members, ranging from labor unions and ACLU-Maine to the League of Women Voters of Maine, Maine Conservation Voters and Disability Rights Maine.
Save Maine Absentee Voting spent more than $1.5 million on the campaign, fueled in part by large donations from national labor unions. The Democratic Governor’s Association and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also spent more than $300,000 combined to defeat Question 1.
The partisan divide was on full display Tuesday night during the “No on 1” campaign’s election night gathering, which was co-hosted by Save Maine Absentee Voting and the Maine Democratic Party.
Devon Murphy-Anderson, the executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, suggested that Tuesday’s victory is a sign of the left’s grassroots organizing ability headed into next year’s elections for governor, the Legislature and the U.S. Senate.
“This year is just a start of the momentum that we are building for 2026,” Murphy-Anderson told the crowd.
