Maine Question 1: Voter ID, Absentee Ballots, and Drop Boxes

Maine Question 1 was a citizen-initiated ballot measure on the November 4, 2025, statewide referendum that would have required photo identification to vote and imposed new limits on absentee voting and ballot drop boxes. Voters rejected it, with 315,008 against (64.2%) and 175,751 in favor (35.8%), a margin of 139,257 votes.¹

What Question 1 Would Have Changed

The initiative ran about 15 pages and contained roughly 25 substantive provisions. Supporters described it as a voter ID law; the text reached considerably further than that, rewriting much of how Mainers request, receive, and return absentee ballots.²

Photo ID at the Polls

Maine does not currently require registered voters to show identification when picking up a ballot.³ Question 1 would have required an unexpired photo ID from a limited list: a Maine driver’s license, a state nondriver ID card, an interim identification form, a U.S. passport or passport card, or a U.S. military, Maine National Guard, or Veterans Affairs ID. Tribal identification cards and student IDs were not on the list.²

A voter without acceptable ID could cast a challenged ballot but would then have four days after the election to show valid identification to the registrar, or the vote would not count. Voters with religious objections to being photographed could file an affidavit instead. To blunt the cost objection, the measure barred the Secretary of State from charging a fee for a nondriver ID card for anyone 18 or older who did not already hold a valid Maine driver’s license.²

Absentee Voting

Current Maine law lets voters request absentee ballots by phone, allows immediate family members to request and return ballots on a voter’s behalf, provides prepaid return postage, and offers an “ongoing absentee voter status” that automatically sends a ballot each election to voters over 65 who self-identify as having a disability.⁴ Question 1 would have rewritten each of those rules:

Telephone requests for absentee ballots would have been prohibited.
The provision letting immediate family members request a ballot on a voter’s behalf or return it by mail would have been repealed; a family member could still hand-deliver a ballot to the clerk’s office.
The ongoing absentee voter status program for seniors and voters with disabilities would have ended, requiring a new request for every election.
The application deadline would have moved to no later than seven business days before the election, eliminating two days of absentee voting.
Municipalities and election officials could no longer prepay return postage on absentee envelopes.
Every absentee ballot application, paper or electronic, would have required a Maine driver’s license or nondriver ID number, or a photocopy of an acceptable photo ID.
Returned ballots would have had to be sealed in a new “identification envelope” with a signed statement under penalty of unsworn falsification.

According to figures Governor Janet Mills cited in opposing the measure, more than 40% of Maine voters cast absentee ballots in recent elections.⁵

Drop Boxes

Each municipality would have been limited to a single secured drop box, placed outside the municipal registrar’s office on the same property. The existing option to ask the Secretary of State for additional boxes would have been eliminated. Bipartisan teams of election officials would have had to service the boxes, with retrieval at least once a day during the absentee voting period and at 8 p.m. on election day.²

How the Question Was Worded

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows was responsible for condensing the 25-provision bill into a single ballot question. Her office received 318 public comments during a 30-day comment period from March 12 through April 11, 2025, and she adjusted the ordering of the listed items before issuing the final text.⁶ The question read:

“Do you want to change Maine election laws to eliminate two days of absentee voting, prohibit requests for absentee ballots by phone or family members, end ongoing absentee voter status for seniors and people with disabilities, ban prepaid postage on absentee ballot return envelopes, limit the number of drop boxes, require voters to show certain photo ID before voting, and make other changes to our elections?”²

Campaign manager Alex Titcomb and four other petitioners sued, arguing that the wording buried the voter ID requirement near the end and misled voters by leading with the absentee restrictions. Bellows responded that the proponents had filed no comments during the public comment period and that if they did not want those provisions appearing in the question, they should not have included them in the initiative.⁷ The Superior Court rejected the challenge on June 13, 2025, and on July 11, 2025, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, finding the question “understandable to a reasonable voter reading the question for the first time.”⁸

The Campaigns and the Money

The “Voter ID for ME” committee, backed by the conservative Dinner Table PAC, led the yes campaign. Titcomb argued that 36 states already had some form of voter ID law and that Maine polling consistently showed around 70% support for voter ID.⁹ Proponents described the absentee changes as minor procedural fixes. Through October 21, 2025, the yes campaign reported more than $585,000 raised, of which the Republican State Leadership Committee contributed over $520,000.¹⁰

The opposition organized as “Save Maine Absentee Voting,” a coalition of more than 35 nonprofits that included the ACLU of Maine, the League of Women Voters of Maine, Disability Rights Maine, the Maine AFL-CIO, EqualityMaine, the Wabanaki Alliance, Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund, and the Maine People’s Alliance.¹¹ Campaign strategist David Farmer called the initiative a “kitchen sink approach” to undermining participation and argued that if the sponsors wanted only voter ID they could have written a one-line bill.⁹ As of October 21, 2025, the no campaign had raised nearly $1.8 million and spent about $1.77 million. Major contributions included $100,000 from the National Education Association, $130,000 from former state senator Justin Alfond, and $100,000 from the Democracy Fund Voice.¹⁰

The Wabanaki Alliance opposed the measure in part because tribal IDs were left off the approved list, even though tribal IDs are already accepted for voter registration in Maine. Bellows noted the contradiction: “a tribal member could use tribal ID to register to vote but then could not use that same ID to vote.”¹² Alliance executive director Maulian Bryant called the exclusion “offensive,” noting that Indigenous people were not permitted to vote in Maine state elections until 1967.¹³ Titcomb said the drafters chose to limit the list to “just the most common” government-issued IDs and that the Legislature could add tribal IDs later.¹⁴

Governor Mills formally announced her opposition on October 10, 2025, calling the measure a 15-page bill that “just makes it harder for Maine people to vote.” Citing her service as a former District Attorney and Attorney General, she said there was “no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Maine,” and compared the initiative to 2011, when nearly 60% of voters used a people’s veto to restore same-day voter registration.¹⁵

The Vote and the Geographic Split

Turnout for the off-year referendum reached just over 47% of registered voters, with 492,008 total ballots cast.¹⁶ The geographic pattern was sharp. No votes dominated urban and coastal communities: Portland 90%, Orono 86%, Bar Harbor and Camden 85% each, and Cape Elizabeth 84%. Yes votes were concentrated in small, rural, inland towns such as Deblois (94%), Drew Plantation (85%), and Maxfield (82%), where the raw ballot counts were small. The population centers carried the statewide result.¹⁷

What Remains in Place

Because Question 1 failed, Maine’s existing election laws are unchanged. The state continues to allow no-excuse absentee voting, phone and family-member ballot requests, prepaid return postage on absentee envelopes, and the ongoing absentee voter status program for seniors and voters with disabilities. Registered voters are still not required to show photo identification at the polls.¹⁸ The result was the second time in 14 years that Maine voters turned back an effort to tighten ballot access, following the 2011 people’s veto on same-day registration.

1
Maine Secretary of State. Official Results November 2025 Referendum Election
2
Maine Secretary of State. Maine Citizens Guide 2025
3
Maine Secretary of State. Your Right to Vote in Maine
4
Maine Morning Star. Question 1 Changes to Maine Election Laws
5
Maine Governor’s Office. Reject Question 1
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Maine Secretary of State. Secretary of State Issues Final Wording of Referendum Question
7
Maine Public. Lawsuit Seeks Re-Write of This Fall’s Voter ID Ballot Question
8
Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Titcomb et al. v. Secretary of State, No. Cum-25-284
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Maine Public. Does Maine’s Question 1 Call for Commonsense Voter ID Changes, or Will It Undermine Absentee Voting
10
Maine Morning Star. Filings Show Question 1 Opponents Raised Three Times That of Voter ID Campaign
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ACLU of Maine. Nonprofit Organizations Urge Their Members to Vote No on Question 1
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Bangor Daily News. Wabanaki Alliance Opposes Question 1
13
Maine Public. Question 1 Could Make It Harder for Wabanaki Citizens to Vote
14
Central Maine. Question 1 Would Limit Access for Indigenous Voters in Maine, Wabanaki Advocates Say
15
Maine Governor’s Office. Governor Mills Announces Opposition to Question 1
16
Maine Public. Nearly Half of Maine’s Voters Participated in Off-Year Election
17
New York Times. Results: Maine Question 1 New Voting Restrictions
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Maine Morning Star. Mainers Reject Voter ID Proposal, Opting to Maintain State Voting Laws