Mainers were turning out steadily for an odd-year Tuesday election that will decide high-profile voting and gun control referendums along with local races across the state.
Nearly 145,000 voters requested absentee ballots ahead of Election Day, which was 30,000 more than the total from the 2023 election that decided several referendum questions. Democrats filed more than 50% of those requests to just 21% of Republicans, which was the biggest gap in Maine since the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped voting.
The referendum results will headline Tuesday’s election. Question 1 is a conservative-backed effort to require photo identification to vote while restricting absentee voting, while Question 2 is backed by many Democrats and advocates for gun control who want Maine to have a “red flag” law similar to those found in more than 20 other states.“
“I am usually an election worker,” Karin Carlson-Snider, a 45-year-old Democrat who works at a nonprofit film archive, said after voting against Question 1 in Bangor on Tuesday morning. “Everyone should be able to vote as easily as possible.”
But another Democrat, Kevin Wheaton, 40, a stay-at-home father, voted for the initiative while downplaying its effects, saying: “Everyone in the state of Maine can get an ID.”
Bangor was deciding a raucous city council race with nine candidates vying for three open seats. By noon Tuesday, more than 2,000 people had voted at the Cross Insurance Center alongside the nearly 3,400 absentee voters in the city.
There were also notable elections being held in rural areas. In Washington County, commissioners are asking voters to borrow up to $11 million to dig out of years of county budget mismanagement. Officials there have advocated for a yes vote, saying the county could default on short-term loans to Machias Savings Bank if the initiative does not pass.
In-person turnout looked to be higher in cities and towns that had competitive local elections, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said after visiting polling stations in southern Maine. She said Biddeford was seeing heavy interest overlapping with a competitive mayoral race.
There were few reported issues at the polls on Tuesday, the Democratic secretary of state said. Her office has fielded typical concerns about apparel advocating for candidates or political figures and people gathering signatures for referendums, but she called those kinds of complaints typical.
