Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and local election officials throughout Maine are in the final stretch of a busy period leading up to Election Day while hoping for no mail-in ballot issues.
Bellows and election leaders around the country have urged voters to return absentee ballots as soon as possible amid ongoing concerns about the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to handle and deliver ballots on time.
The Democratic secretary of state and her team spoke again with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Thursday after additional calls earlier this month. Bellows spoke with the Bangor Daily News about the latest call and what DeJoy has advised Maine officials on ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.
How did the most recent conversation go? Could you share anything on what the Postal Service is telling the state and what lingering concerns are out there?
Bellows: We had meetings with [DeJoy] directly. He called me and our state election officials: Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn and her team today and also last week. We were heartened by the individualized attention to Maine. We are also very grateful to the extraordinary postal workers on the ground in our state.
There will be some extraordinary measures to ensure ballot returns, including sweeping the distribution centers [in Hampden and Scarborough] on Election Day and direct delivery, specifically of ballots to the [local] clerk.
We are optimistic that the efforts of postal workers on the ground will help ensure that as many ballots as possible are returned in a timely way, but we are also realistic that all across Maine, there have been delays in delivery that could make it difficult if a voter is obtaining an absentee ballot at the very last minute to ensure their ballot is returned on time.
That’s why we encourage people who are planning to vote absentee to do so now, and if your town has an absentee ballot drop box or office hours for the clerk that you can return the ballot directly to the town, that may be a better option.
We did press the postmaster general for a return to local delivery as an extraordinary measure close to Election Day. The Postal Service declined to promulgate rules encouraging local delivery at the ballot but did say that no postal workers who engaged in local delivery to expedite ballots would be punished.
Could you explain “local delivery” for those who do not understand the term?
Bellows: Yeah, we urged [DeJoy] to consider directing the post offices to engage in local delivery, which is where the mail ballots would stay in the town itself.
It doesn’t make sense for ballots from Allagash to go down to Hampden and back up to Allagash when they never need to leave that little town.
Unfortunately, the federal postal rules don’t allow for that, although the postmaster general did reassure us that local post offices won’t be penalized if they decided to expedite ballots by engaging in local delivery.
How worried or concerned are you about after the election and dealing with any legal challenges, misinformation or threats given this current environment?
Bellows: What we’re seeing on the ground is that Maine elections are running very smoothly, and we anticipate a free, fair and secure election, just as we experienced during the primaries and in prior years.
Certainly, campaigns and candidates may try to make noise or bring challenges to confuse or scare voters or election officials. But given the hard work of local and state election officials who are running such a smooth and safe election, I’m confident that we will have yet another successful election.
