Advocates for Voter ID laws in Maine will mark a significant milestone on Monday with the submission of over 170,000 petition signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office, aiming to bring a citizen initiative requiring voter identification to the 2025 ballot.
The grassroots effort, led by Dinner Table Action Executive Director Alex Titcomb and Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn), relied on minimal funding and more than 800 volunteers to gather the signatures.
The legislation behind the petitions, if enacted, would require voters to present a photographic ID or otherwise prove their identity in order to cast a vote on Election Day.
“For more than a decade, Maine’s Democratic majority has ignored calls for accountability,” the group said in a press release. “The time has come for Maine to join the 35 other U.S. states that require voters to present an official ID when exercising their core democratic right to vote.”
If the ballot measure is approved in Nov. 2025, Maine would become the 36th state to implement voter ID requirements, aligning with a trend seen across the United States and Europe.
Currently, 46 out of 47 European countries require some form of personal identification in order to vote, making the practice standard among Western democracies.
Despite the relatively common practice, Democrats in Maine, including left-wing Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D), have resisted calls for Voter ID in Maine.
[RELATED: Mills, Bellows Cozy with Progressive Group ‘Studying’ Noncitizen Voting in Maine…]
Bellows has cited in legislative testimony, without providing any evidence, that voter ID laws suppress the vote, particularly among minority voters.
In fact, the most comprehensive study to-date of the impact on voter participation in U.S. elections has found no negative effect on voter registration or turnout following the passage of Voter ID laws in other U.S. states.
That study, conducted by the non-partisan National Bureau of Economic Research in Feb. 2019, examined more than 1.3 billion records over an eight-year period from 2008 to 2016.
From the NBER study:
Using a difference-in-differences design on a 1.3-billion-observations panel, we find the laws have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation. These results hold through a large number of specifications and cannot be attributed to mobilization against the laws, measured by campaign contributions and self-reported political engagement. ID requirements have no effect on fraud either – actual or perceived. Overall, our results suggest that efforts to reform voter ID laws may not have much impact on elections.
According to a Dinner Table Action press release distributed on Thursday, supporters plan to gather at the State House on Monday morning as a show of the initiative’s broad support.
Supporters of Voter ID laws argue that these measures deter fraud, bolster public trust in elections, and align Maine with widely accepted practices globally.
Under Maine law, citizen initiatives require proponents to submit signatures equaling at least 10 percent of votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election. In this case, Dinner Table Action is required to submit nearly 68,000 signatures, which means the group has more than doubled the required amount of signatures.
Once those petitions are validated by the Secretary of State’s office, the measure will either appear on the November ballot or, alternatively, be enacted directly by the Legislature.
If verified, the initiative could have a definitive impact on Maine’s election landscape, though the Voter ID law would only be as strong as the process for issuing the identity documents that allow an individual to vote.
As the Maine Wire has previously reported, Maine’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles under Sec. Bellows has adopted the practice of issuing drivers licenses to noncitizens using the place-holder Social Security Number 999-99-9999.
Bellows has refused to say how often drivers licenses are issued using this phony Social Security Number, and its unclear whether licenses issued under such a number would enable an individual to vote under the proposed Voter ID law.
The proposed Voter ID law would, however, make it harder for legal and illegal immigrants to register to vote illegally and illegally vote — or have third parties register them to vote and illegally cast votes in their names.
As the Maine Wire has documented extensively, as many as 40 percent of the noncitizens — both legal and illegal aliens — present in Maine may be registered to vote and voting in Maine’s elections.
So far, Bellows and Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey have refused to investigate the election crimes related to noncitizen voting.
The measure that the ballot initiative would implement, if approved by voters, is a four-page bill entitled, “An Act to Require an Individual to Present Photographic Identification for the Purpose of Voting.”
Under the proposed law, voters must present a valid photo ID, such as a Maine driver’s license, U.S. passport, or military ID, when voting in person.
Voters without photo identification will cast a challenged or provisional ballot and must provide proper ID within four days post-election for the ballot to be counted.
Religious exemptions for those will moral objections to being photographed can be obtained through an affidavit process. Voters with objections to photography must submit an affidavit citing their beliefs and provide the last four digits of their Social Security number for verification.
To minimize financial barriers, the legislation requires the state to issue free nondriver identification cards to eligible residents who do not possess a Maine driver’s license.
The act, if enacted, will go into effect on January 1, 2026, allowing ample time for infrastructure adjustments and public awareness campaigns.
That timeline would mean the Voter ID measure will be in place for the Nov. 2026 elections, which are expected to be major elections in Maine. Not only will the gubernatorial election be an open race, but U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R) will be seeking re-election, and U.S. Rep. Jared Golden (D) is expected to vacate Maine’s Second Congressional District office in order to run for governor, leaving that seat an open contest for aspiring politicians.
Here’s the text of the proposed legislation:
