Secretary of State Shenna Bellows spoke out in defense of Maine’s free, safe and secure elections, high-lighting the tremendous work of dedicated nonpartisan elections staff, both at the state and local levels and pushed back on DOJ demands for private data at a press conference held this afternoon in Augusta at 1:00 pm.

“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.  “Trumps DOJ is using its immense federal power to try to intimidate us into turning over our protected voter data and changing our voting processes to fit President Trump’s whims.  We’re not backing down because we know our 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 voter turnout with 74,8% of our citizen voting age population casting ballots.

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

“Mainers are known for their independence.  As a large rural state, we are all too used to people from away understanding the will and ability ofMainers,” Secretary Bellows said.  “Washngton bureacrats think they know and can do better — Maine has proven time and time again that we don’ follow, Maine leads.”