(The Center Square) – Maine’s secretary of state says the U.S. Department of Justice can “jump in the Gulf of Maine” and she will not comply with demands for state voter registrations.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat running for governor in 2026, said she received a request from the U.S. Department of Justice to provide a wide range of information about registered voters in the state. Included was a list of election officials involved in maintaining the voter rolls and the process for determining eligibility to vote.
In response, Bellows issued a statement Tuesday telling the Justice Department to “go jump in the Gulf of Maine” and saying she won’t comply with the demands. She said the department “has no right to the sensitive, personal information of every voter” in the state, saying it would violate a provision of the U.S. Constitution giving the states authority over elections.
“The DOJ doesn’t get to know everything about you just because they want to,” Bellows said. “I believe strongly in voter privacy, and I feel strongly that the federal government has overstepped its bounds with this request.”
Bellows is not alone in disdain for the federal administration. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills clashed with President Donald Trump in February at a meeting of the National Governors Association. She opted not to attend another convening this past weekend.
Bellows defended the integrity of the state’s election system under her watch, citing increased voter registration and turnout in recent years, and said she would be formally responding to the Justice Department’s demands in “coming days.”
“Mainers should be very proud of our high voter participation – we have free, safe, and secure elections,” Bellows said. “We owe a thank you to our hardworking state and local election officials who make it happen. The DOJ should be ashamed of themselves for casting any aspersion on Maine clerks and civil service elections officials.”
Maine is the latest state targeted by the Trump administration as it investigates state election policies as part of broader efforts to prevent voter fraud. Other states include New York, New Hampshire, Florida and Wisconsin.
New Hampshire’s Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican, last week rejected the Justice Department’s request for voter registration list, citing a state law declaring the data “private and confidential” and not subject to public records requests.
Bellows was also recently criticized by the Maine Republican Party for dismissing their allegations of voter fraud in the previous presidential election, including claims that some people voted twice. She issued a report last week saying an investigation by her office found no wrongdoing.
Maine will be voting on a referendum in the Nov. 4 elections that would require people to present a valid state ID or driver’s license to vote or request an absentee ballot for federal, state and local elections. The proposal was recently cleared for the ballot after Maine’s highest court rejected a legal challenge over its wording.
