PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s elections have been relatively trouble-free in recent years, and proven cases of voter fraud are extremely occasional.
But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from pushing for sweeping changes to the way the state conducts its voting.
Maine is one of two states with election-related initiatives on the Nov. 4 ballot, but puts the most far-reaching measure before voters. In Texas, Republicans are calling on voters to make it clear in the state constitution that people who are not U.S. citizens are not eligible to vote.
Maine’s Question 1 focuses on the voter ID requirement but is more general in nature. The initiative, backed by an influential conservative group in the state, would also limit the utilize of drop boxes to just one per municipality and impose limits on absentee voting, even as the practice is becoming increasingly popular.
Voters in both states will decide the measures as President Donald Trump continues to lie about widespread fraud that led to his defeat in the 2020 presidential election and make baseless claims about future election manipulation, a strategy that has become routine in election years. Republicans in Congress and state legislatures are pushing for proof of citizenship to register and vote, but with confined success.
Maine’s initiative would introduce voter ID and restrict mail-in voting
The Maine proposal would require voters to show voter ID before voting, a provision that has been adopted in several other states, particularly those controlled by Republicans. In April, Wisconsin voters enshrined the state’s existing voter ID law in the state constitution.
Question 1 would also eliminate two days of absentee voting, prohibit applications for absentee voting by telephone or from family members, end absentee voter status for seniors and people with disabilities, and limit the number of mailboxes, among other things.
Mail-in voting is popular in Maine, where Democrats control the Legislature and governor’s office and voters have elected a Republican and an independent as U.S. senators. Almost half of voters there used postal voting in the 2024 presidential election.
Gov. Janet Mills is one of many Democrats in the state who oppose the proposed changes.
“Whether you vote in person or by mail, you can have confidence that your vote will be counted fairly,” Mills said. “But this fundamental right to vote is attacked by Question 1.”
Proponents of the voter ID push said it’s about strengthening election security.
“There’s been a lot of noise about what it supposedly would do, but here’s the simple truth: Question 1 is about securing elections in Maine,” said Republican Rep. Laurel Libby, a supporter of the measure.
A major supporter of the ballot initiative is Dinner Table PAC, a conservative group in the state. Dinner Table launched Voter ID for ME, raising more than $600,000 to support the initiative. Most of that money comes from the Republican State Leadership Committee, which advocates for Republican candidates and state-level initiatives across the country. Save Maine Absentee Voting, a state group that opposes the initiative, has raised more than $1.6 million, with the National Education Association its largest donor.
The campaign for and against the initiative continues as the state and FBI investigate how dozens of unmarked ballots intended to be used in this year’s election ended up in a woman’s Amazon order. The secretary of state’s office said the blank ballots, still bundled and wrapped in plastic, would not be used in the election.
Texas voters consider a citizenship requirement
In Texas, voters will decide whether to add language to the state constitution that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other supporters say would guarantee that noncitizens cannot vote in any election there. State and federal laws already prohibit non-citizens from voting.
Thirteen states have made similar changes to their constitutions since North Dakota in 2018. Proposed constitutional amendments will be on the ballot in Kansas and South Dakota in November 2026.
The measures have been very popular so far, receiving an average of 72% of the vote.
“I think it needs to encompass the entire nation,” said Republican state Rep. AJ Louderback, who represents a district southwest of Houston. “I think we need to clean up this mess.”
Voters must confirm that they are U.S. citizens when registering, and voting by noncitizens, which is occasional, is punishable by crime and can result in deportation.
Louderback and other supporters of such amendments point to policies in at least 20 communities across the country that allow non-citizens to vote in local elections, although none exist in Texas. These include Oakland and San Francisco in California, where noncitizens can vote in school board elections if they have children in public schools, the District of Columbia, and several cities in Maryland and Vermont.
Other states, including Kansas, have explicit language in their constitutions about a citizenship requirement: every U.S. citizen over the age of 18 is eligible to vote. In some states, amendments have been made to rewrite the wording to make it more of a ban: Only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote.
The article on voting in the Texas Constitution currently begins with a list of three “groups of persons not permitted to vote”: those under 18 years of age, convicted felons, and those “declared mentally incompetent by a court.” The Nov. 4 amendment would add a fourth: “persons who are not citizens of the United States.”
Critics say the proposed changes are unnecessary
Critics say requiring voters in Maine and banning non-citizens in Texas are solutions in search of a problem, reinforcing the long-standing conservative Republican narrative that non-citizen voting is a significant problem when in reality it is extremely occasional.
In Texas, the secretary of state’s office recently announced that it had found in its registration rolls the names of 2,700 “potential non-citizens” among the state’s nearly 18.5 million registered voters.
Veronikah Warms, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said spreading the narrative promotes discrimination and fuels fear of government retaliation among naturalized citizens and people of color. Her group advocates for protecting the rights of these groups and immigrants and opposes the proposed change.
“It simply serves no purpose other than spreading the lie that non-citizens are trying to undermine our democratic process,” she said. “This simply promotes a harmful narrative that makes it even more frightening for people to actually exercise their constitutional right.”
In Maine, approving Question 1 would most likely make voting more challenging overall, said Mark Brewer, chair of the University of Maine’s political science department. He added that claims of widespread voter fraud were not supported by evidence.
“The data shows that the more hurdles and restrictions you put on voting, the harder it is to vote, and the fewer people who vote.”
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This story has been corrected with the correct name “Save Maine Absentee Voting.”
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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.
