Maine's top elections official tells DOJ to 'jump in the Gulf of Maine' over voter data request

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said Tuesday that her office will not hand over personal voter information to the U.S. Department of Justice, saying the request oversteps the federal government's constitutional authority.

Maine is among a growing number of states that have received letters from the DOJ requesting copies of voter registration lists and other information about state elections systems. The July 24 letter to Bellows asks for a complete copy of Maine's statewide voter registration list as well as for a list of election officials responsible for maintaining that list.

The department also asked for detailed information about the state's efforts to update the voter rolls and for a list of registered voters who were deemed ineligible to vote since 2022 because they were found to be non-citizens or "incompetent."

Other states have pushed back on those requests, as did Bellows during a press conference organized by her office.

"But what the DOJ is asking is unprecedented," Bellows said. "It's an abuse of power and it contravenes what the founders set forth in the Constitution. And as a defender of voter privacy, to protect the freedom to vote, that's why we're saying today, 'No, you've gone too far.'"

The Democrat also channeled a former Republican secretary of state from Mississippi who, in 2017, told the first Trump administration to "jump in the Gulf of Mexico" after it requested voter roll information from states.

"Now the Gulf of Maine is awfully cold but maybe that's what DOJ needs to cool down," said Bellows, who is running for the Democratic nomination in Maine's 2026 gubernatorial race. "This is my answer to Trump's Department of Justice: go jump in the Gulf of Maine."

A Justice Department spokesperson responded with a simple "no comment" to two requests from Maine Public for responses to Bellows' accusations and for additional information about the requests for voter data from states. About a dozen states have received such requests in recent weeks, although Bellows said a DOJ official told the national association of secretaries of state that they will eventually request the data from all 50 states.

It is unclear how the information requested from states will be used by the Justice Department. Michael Gates, the deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights at the DOJ, starts his letter to Bellows last week by referring to the voter list maintenance requirements of the National Voter Registration Act.

"Please provide a list of the election officials who are responsible for implementing Maine's general program of voter registration list maintenance from November 2022 through the receipt of this letter, including those responsible officials not employed by your office (such as local elections officials) who are also involved in that effort," Gates wrote. "Please also provide a description of the steps that you have taken, and when those steps were taken, to ensure that the state's list maintenance program has been properly carried out in full compliance with the NVRA."

Bellows, in turn, accused the DOJ of "casting aspersions" on elections officials.

Trump and some Republican allies have repeatedly raised the specter of widespread voter fraud or illegal voting, particularly during his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

During his first term, Trump created a special commission to investigate allegations of illegal voting in the 2016 elections. But the commission disbanded without uncovering any evidence of fraud. Bellows' predecessor as Maine's secretary of state, Matt Dunlap, served on the commission and was a vocal critic of a process that he said appeared to have a pre-determined outcome of justifying Trump's unsubstantiated claims of illegal voting.

Maine election officials are required under law to routinely review voter registration lists to remove deceased individuals and identify any individuals who have changed addresses or left the state.

Maine does allow political parties, get-out-the-vote groups and other organizations to access certain information from the state's "central voter registration system." That information includes the names, addresses, party affiliation and voting history of individual voters. But Bellows said Tuesday that other information in her office's voter registration files — such as birth dates and social security numbers — is confidential and not disclosed. Bellows said the DOJ appears to be seeking that information as well, however.

"If the DOJ has legitimate requests or legitimate concerns, we are always happy to collaborate on legitimate initiatives," Bellows said. "This is not legitimate. When you are requesting the sensitive personal information of every citizen who votes in our state, that's why I am saying, 'Go jump in the Gulf of Maine.'"

Earlier this summer, the Maine Republican Party said it uncovered more than 600 voters who were registered twice in the state's voter database and that more than 50 of those voters appeared to have voted twice in a single election. Bellows' office said weeks later that they investigated the allegations and found none of the voters flagged by the Maine GOP had committed any wrongdoing.

This isn't Bellows' first clash with Trump.

In late 2023, she declared Trump ineligible for Maine's 2024 Republican presidential primary because she said he violated the constitution's insurrection clause by inciting the January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. Bellows was later forced to reverse that decision, however, after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a similar decision by Colorado elections officials.

A former state senator and head of the ACLU of Maine, Bellows is one of five Democrats who have announced bids for the Democratic nomination to become Maine's next governor.

This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative. It was originally published by Maine Public.