Maine voters restore same-day voter registration

The citizens of Maine on Tuesday repealed a recently passed law requiring voters to enroll at least two days before an election.

With more than three-quarters of the state’s precincts reporting, 60 percent of voters had rejected the law, according to the Bangor Daily News.

"Whenever the party in power wants to cling to that power by changing the rules -- by making it harder for you to hold them accountable, by making it harder for you to vote -- it's up to you to stop them," State Rep. Bob Duchesne said during last week's Democratic Radio Address.

Republicans said the law was necessary to protect against voter fraud, but Duchesne noted that in 38 years, there were only two cases of voter fraud.

The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the law in June, ending a nearly four-decade policy of allowing voters to register on Election Day. But the group Protect Maine Votes, a coalition of liberal and progressive groups, gathered enough signatures to have the law placed on the November 8 ballot.

“Mainers stood up for the integrity and security of our elections today,” said Shenna Bellows, the co-chair of the campaign’s steering committee and the executive director of the ACLU of Maine. “We must remain vigilant against any future attacks on voting rights. Maine voters have sent a clear message: No one should be denied the right to vote.”

Photo credit: Tom Arthur