Mainers may no longer be voting this November on a ballot question to restrict the rights of transgender students to access bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams aligning with their gender identity.
That’s because a state official determined that petitioners did not collect enough valid signatures, falling 500 short of the minimum required threshold to qualify for a citizen-led ballot initiative. Chief Deputy Secretary of State Katherine McBrien, who presided over a hearing last week to determine signature validity, is recommending to the Maine Secretary of State’s Office that more than 12,000 signatures that may have been collected improperly be invalidated, the office confirmed on May 21.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows will issue a final decision May 26.
The ballot initiative seeks to require sports teams and school facilities to be separated by biological sex as opposed to gender identity, is at odds with the Maine Human Rights Act.
Tim Woodcock, an attorney with Eaton Peabody representing the petition campaign, said they are reviewing the recommended decision closely. “We are continuing our defense of the Protect Girls Sports ballot measure and will be filing our objections to the recommended decision before the May 23 deadline,” Woodcock said.
The campaign’s signature gathering practices were cast into doubt when three challengers claimed that 7,900 signatures previously deemed valid by the Secretary of State’s Office should be disqualified in Superior Court. On April 24, Justice Deborah Cashman remanded the challenge to the Secretary of State’s Office for a final determination. Last week, McBrien and Assistant Attorney General Jon Bolton held an hours-long hearing during which both sides presented their arguments.
Over the course of the hearing, a pattern of negligence within the campaign emerged, with signature collectors admitting to leaving forms unattended, among other infractions.
“There were some significant areas of concern around the signature gathering practices here, and the rules exist to make sure that only a sufficient number of valid signatures are submitted,” said Ben Stafford, a partner in the national legal firm Elias Law Group representing the challengers of the “Protect Girls Sports” petition. “That didn’t happen here.”
McBrien sent her determination that 67,150 signatures were valid and 12,542 were invalid to both parties’ attorneys.
The number of signatures required to place the petition question on the November ballot is 67,682. The parties have until Saturday at midnight to respond.
Much of the hearing focused on signature gatherers leaving petitions behind unattended, which several community members documented and attested to. It also called into question some campaign workers who failed to sign a circulator’s affidavit until months after the signatures were submitted to the secretary of state.
More than 3,800 signatures were deemed invalid by McBrien through the hearing process, including 1,037 due to unattended petitions and more than 2,300 due to a missing circulator’s affidavit.
“We think that those determinations are very well founded by both actual record that has been presented and bolstered at this point, and then the underlying legal standards,” Stafford said.
This story was first published by the Maine Morning Star and is republished here under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
PORTLAND, Maine (WGME) — While the statewide moratorium on data center development was vetoed by Governor Mills, local communities across the state are now taking matters into their own hands, with some passing their own pauses.
At least four southern Maine cities and towns, including Scarborough, Sanford, and Westbrook have all implemented local data center moratoriums in recent weeks.
It comes as new polling show most Mainers opposed the construction of these facilities.
That poll, conducted by UMass Lowell and released last week, shows 72% of Mainers don’t want a data center built in their community, including 51% who strongly opposed it.
Just 28% said they would support that type of development.
The results mirror what’s being seen across the country.
According to a poll released Friday by Reuters, only 14% of Americans said they felt comfortable with a data center being built nearby.
77% said they worried AI-driven data centers would raise their electricity costs.
Those are concerns lawmakers here in Maine say cross the political spectrum.
“Red states, blue states, purple states are having this conversation, and people just want to have some answers about what this technology means, what this development opportunity means,” Rep. Melanie Sachs said.
Maine currently has a data center advisory council studying the potential impact large-scale data center development could have on the state’s energy grid and resources.
They’re expected to release a final report in January.
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Politics
Our political journalists are based in the Maine State House and have deep source networks across the partisan spectrum in communities all over the state. Their coverage aims to cut through major debates and probe how officials make decisions. Read more Politics coverage here.
Sitting in third place in the tight Democratic gubernatorial primary, former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson has gone off the grid, fishing and spending time with family in Aroostook County for a long weekend with little to no phone service.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, currently fourth but still with a shot to become the Democratic nominee, posted a Wednesday photo with her husband at an Augusta brewery. Former Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree headed home with family in North Haven Wednesday after her primary party in Portland the night before.
“Now it’s just a matter of patience,” Pingree spokesperson Mary-Erin Casale said.
After a primary night without closure, several candidates aiming to replace Gov. Janet Mills are playing the waiting game, spinning the results and trying to relax at home with families after barnstorming the state for months, watching late results trickle in or readying to keep close watch of Augusta’s ranked-choice counting starting Friday.
The next phase of the primary marks a lull that could take about a week following an increasingly bitter season on both sides of the aisle. Law enforcement officers are delivering results from towns across Maine to Augusta, where election officials on Friday will begin tabulating both parties’ gubernatorial primaries and the tight Democratic battle for the 2nd Congressional District. The state hopes to wrap up before next Friday.
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The wait has given way to calls for party unity by the Republican and Democratic frontrunners, lawyer Bobby Charles and former Maine public health chief Nirav Shah, respectively. It also opened a door for the only independent on the ballot in November, state Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford. With stops in Waterville and Bangor, the former Republican launched a statewide tour Thursday focused on affordability, Maine’s economy and restoring trust in government.
Keeping in style with his aggressive year-long campaign, Charles has been active on social media since racking up just over 37% of first-round votes on Tuesday. But he said he wanted to “take an unusual moment” to thank his supporters and those who voted for his opponents in a Facebook video Thursday morning. He also said he’d reach out to every candidate, several of whom traded blows with him over policy and tactics for months.
“At the end of the day, we hang together or we hang separately,” Charles, who attended a Thursday fundraiser for state Rep. Ken Fredette’s political committee in Newport, said. “This is one team, one fight to save Maine.”
Shah on Wednesday afternoon thanked his opponents, including former energy executive Angus King III, saying “our party is stronger” because of the group’s dedication to Maine.
Bellows, Jackson and Pingree formed a ranked-choice alliance backed by U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner. All expressed confidence about their individual performance. It remains to be seen who picks up most of King’s lower-ranked votes. The son of independent U.S. Sen. Angus King got just over 8% of votes.
Christine Kirby, Jackson’s spokesperson, noted the Allagash logger won both Portland and Bangor on Tuesday, a strong performance in a race “largely overshadowed by the U.S. Senate race and dominated by legacy names and high profile figures.”
Casale said at first glance it’s odd to be excited about second place. But given the dynamics of ranked-choice voting and recent polling showing Pingree rising “at a critical time in the race,” it means “we are in a good position,” she said. Bellows’ team highlighted a Bangor Daily News simulation showing her as a narrow favorite due to strong second-choice support.
On the Republican side, fitness executive Ben Midgley and entrepreneur Jonathan Bush trail Charles after picking up 20.2% and 20% support, respectively. Bush had recently polled in second place, while Midgley has been anywhere from 2% to 10% in recent surveys.
“No campaign outperformed the polls the way Ben Midgley did,” Brent Littlefield, his strategist, said.
Bush and former Maine Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason and their allies spent almost $8.5 million combined in ads. Midgley’s team booked only about $264,000 according to AdImpact, and he loaned his campaign $750,000. Charles spent less than all of them at just over $240,000 on advertising.
Mason, who received about 11% of the vote, said the results marked “the end of my final statewide campaign” in a Thursday post on X thanking supporters, family and staff. He encouraged voters to back U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and Republicans in the Legislature but did not mention his rivals.
Charles noted on social media that his campaign has “witnesses, lawyers and tough voter integrity experts working with us” during the ranked-choice count. One of his posts Thursday included images of Shah and Jackson alongside Mills, claiming they amounted to “more of the same.” Bennett’s face was lumped in with the Democrats.
“I’m sure I’m in his [and Democrats’] minds,” Bennett said in an interview between conversations with voters and volunteers at Geaghan’s Pub in Bangor on Thursday. “I’m sure they have numbers that show there’s a good chance I will be Maine’s next governor … because what they’re serving up is just more finger-pointing, no problem solving.”
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