Maine's secretary of state invalidates transgender student athlete ballot referendum

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said Tuesday that a proposed referendum on transgender athletes and students has failed to qualify for the fall ballot after more than 12,500 petition signatures were invalidated.

Bellows had previously approved sending the initiative to voters after an initial review found the campaign had submitted more than 71,000 valid signatures. The proposed ballot question would only allow athletes to compete on teams that match their birth sex unless a school offers a co-ed team and would require schools to maintain separate locker rooms, restrooms and showers for male and female students.

But staff in Bellows' office conducted a deeper dive earlier this month after opponents challenged the validity of thousands of signatures.

On Tuesday, Bellows agreed with the formal recommendation from her chief deputy secretary of state that at least two of the petition circulators had failed to follow the legal process for gathering signatures. As a result, the Protect Girls' Sports in Maine campaign fell 532 signatures short of the 67,682 signatures needed to appear on the November ballot.

"My job as secretary of state is to review the evidence," Bellows told reporters after announcing her decision. "We take the integrity of the petition process just as seriously as we take the security of the voting process. Everyone involved must follow the law. Unfortunately in this case, at least two out-of-state circulators failed to follow Maine law and that is why their petitions have been invalidated."

Bellows is one of five Democrats seeking her party's nomination for governor in the June 9 primary.

Representatives from Protect Girls' Sports in Maine did not immediately respond to request for comment. They have 10 days to appeal Bellows' decision to Maine Superior Court.

But opponents cheered the decision from the state elections officials.

“Maine has strict rules in place to protect the integrity of our elections and our system of direct democracy,” David Farmer, campaign manager for the Campaign for Free and Fair Schools, said in a statement. “The paid, out-of-state signature gathers and the billionaire who paid to try to put this question on the ballot failed to follow the rules. We believe that the appeals process and the reviews by the Secretary of State are working as the law intends. They are protecting the integrity of our elections.”

The Protect Girls Sports in Maine hired three firms to gather signatures on the ballot initiative after state lawmakers failed to pass several bills that sought to change Maine's policy of allowing students to compete on teams based on their gender identity. Those firms, in turn, hired dozens of signature gatherers, or circulators, who are required by law to personally witness each signature on their sheets.

But a lawsuit filed in March in Superior Court by several Maine residents challenged the validity of those signatures. A judge then ordered Bellows' office to review some of those concerns.

After reviewing the petition sheets and holding a hearing with parties from both sides, Chief Deputy Secretary of State Katherine McBrien last week recommended that more 12,500 of the nearly 80,000 signatures be invalidated because of multiple issues. Those included forged signatures, petition circulators failing to file valid affidavits with the secretary of state's office, duplicate signatures and signatories not matching any registered voters in their town's voting rolls.

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