We are at the four week mark in the countdown to Election Day. Early voting began Monday, and while the presidential race dominates the news, that's not all that's at stake.
As part of Maine Public's Your Vote 2024 coverage, we spoke with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows about what voters need to know, who are the candidates and what are the referendum questions on the ballot and what's being done to ensure election security and poll worker safety. And we discussed absentee ballots, ranked choice voting, when the last mail-in ballots are likely to be counted and more.
To listen to the full episode, click on the play button at the top of this post.
Show highlights
On your local ballot
There are two resources on our website. First and foremost, a lot of folks wonder who's running in my district. So we have online the Maine Voter Information Lookup Service. You type in your town, your street address, and you'll see information about who your clerk is. You'll see information about where to vote, and a sample ballot, so you can see exactly what's going to be on the ballot.
There's also the Citizens Guide to the 2024 Maine Referendum Election that has information about the questions, some plain language interpretations by the Office of the Attorney General, the actual law behind the questions and the fiscal analyses of how much each of those questions will cost, prepared by the state treasurer.
On disinformation about voting
Unfortunately, one of the trends that we're seeing this year, just like it has been reported in the news around hurricane disaster relief misinformation and disinformation, we see that in elections as well.
A United States citizen is a United States citizen is a United States citizen. So it doesn't matter if you just turned 18 on Nov. 5 and you're voting for the first time, or if you've moved to our country to build a better life for yourself and your family, and to contribute to Maine and our world, and you're a naturalized United States citizen. It doesn't matter if you moved to Maine yesterday from another state, as someone I know trying to rebuild their lives after North Carolina has decided to do. It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from — if you're a United States citizen, and you will be 18 years or older on Nov. 5, and you are a resident of our state, living here in our state, you have a right to vote, no exceptions. And I think that's a wonderful thing.
On post-election safety
We have very strict chain-of-custody protections for the ballots and the memory devices from the tabulators, and we have wonderful partnerships with law enforcement at every level, protecting the ballots, protecting our election officials locally and at the state level. So we are very confident that we have appropriate election security measures in place. The Electoral College will meet in Augusta and the State Capitol in December, and we will convey the results to the federal government so that the Electoral College votes can be counted appropriately, no matter who wins. I think every American should be so proud that our processes are fair and that checks and balances exist to protect the vote.
These highlights have been lightly edited for clarity.
