Shenna Bellows Criticizes Make Elections Great Again Act as “Unconstitutional” Move to “Disenfranchise Voters” and “Engineer Election Outcomes”

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has sent a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on House Administration expressing concern over the proposed Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act.

In a statement shared Tuesday, the Secretary of State characterized the bill as “the most sweeping federalization of election administration in our nation’s history,” alleging that the law would be “unconstitutional” and “disenfranchise voters.”

House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI) has been the leading lawmaker behind this legislation, which seeks to make sweeping changes to federal election law.

“Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity – including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification,” Rep. Steil said in a statement when the bill was first unveiled. “These reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat.”

Under the proposed legislation, Americans would be required to show a photo ID when casting their ballots, as well as prove that they are a citizen when registering to vote.

The proposed law would also block federal agencies from using taxpayer dollars to promote voter registration.

This bill would also impact how states administer their elections, such as by mandating that only mail-in ballots received by Election Day be counted, regardless of when they were postmarked.

Universal vote-by-mail systems would also be prohibited under the proposed law, as well as ranked choice voting.

[RELATED: Legislature Advances Controversial Expansion of Ranked Choice Voting After Last Minute Recall from Gov. Janet Mills’ Desk Last Year]

Secretary of State Bellows shared a statement Wednesday heavily criticizing the proposed measures.

“The so-called MEGA Act is yet another unconstitutional attempt by the Trump administration to disenfranchise voters and wrest control of elections away from the states – yet another attempt to engineer election outcomes by any means possible,” said Bellows.

“The intent of this proposed bill seems far more about reducing turnout and turning eligible U.S. citizens away from the polls than solving some imagined and disproven theory of voter fraud,” she said.

“This Act would restrict voting rights of a substantial portion of Mainers, saddling them with costly and confusing mandates that would be impossible for many to meet and designed to discourage them from even trying,” she continued. “All while causing significant administrative and equipment costs to states and municipalities.”

“Maine’s rural residents, those who have changed their names, students, older Mainers, people unable to make it to their local polling place on Election Day all would face uphill battles just to exercise their right to vote – even those who have been legally registered and faithfully voted for years, even decades,” she said.

“At the Maine BMV, we have seen firsthand how difficult it is for many to obtain proper credentials,” she said. “This is particularly common among married women, people who have changed their names, people who have moved states, northern Mainers born in Canada because that happened to be the nearest hospital.”

“We encounter delays with documentary proof of citizenship every day at the BMV,” said Bellows. “You can return if you’re turned away at the BMV – you can’t return another day to vote.”

“Maine is proud of our free, safe, and secure elections, and we routinely rank among the top of the nation in voter turnout,” Bellows concluded. “We will not back down in defending the strength of our elections and the rule of law no matter how many times or ways they try.”

Click Here to Read Secretary Bellows’ Full Statement

The MEGA Act has been introduced in the United States House of Representatives and is actively under consideration by lawmakers. No votes have been taken on its passage in either chamber.