Democracy Docket - Maine voters rejected a Republican-backed ballot initiative Tuesday that would have imposed new photo ID rules and severely limited mail-in voting — a decisive win for voting rights advocates who said the measure threatened to upend the state’s long-standing tradition of accessible elections.
The measure, appearing on the ballot as Question 1, would have created a new photo ID requirement for both in-person and mail-in voting and eliminated programs that expanded access to absentee ballots. It also would have ended Maine’s permanent absentee voter list — requiring voters to apply for a mail ballot each election — banned ballot requests on behalf of family members and limited every town to a single drop box.