Politics
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Maine superintendents and school boards came out Monday against a renewed effort that now has bipartisan support to make Election Day a public school holiday in the wake of hoax shooting threats that disrupted polling places last November.
The bill from Rep. Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan, initially set out to make Election Day a state holiday before Poirier introduced an amendment that would only make it a holiday for public schools in Maine. The holiday would apply to November elections in even-numbered years.
While Poirier and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, shared many reasons for supporting the measure during Monday’s State and Local Government Committee hearing, the opposition from a Maine School Management Association official who was also testifying on behalf of superintendents and school boards adds a wrinkle to the debate.
Poirier and Bellows emphasized wanting to keep students and staff safe after Bellows said five polling locations at or next to Maine schools received “swatting” calls on Election Day this past November that reported false threats of armed shooters on campuses.
The calls resulted in fairly brief lockdowns for schools and polling locations in cities and towns such as Bangor, South Portland, North Berwick and South Paris, and they led the pro-gun rights Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to quickly come out in favor of making Election Day a holiday, an idea that Democrats in the Legislature and Congress have generally backed in the past.
“I just want to keep everybody safe and not have that fear in our schools,” Poirier said, explaining she narrowed her bill down to public schools after hearing concerns over costs to employers and child care challenges associated with making it a statewide holiday.
Bellows noted police have not made any arrests in connection with the swatting calls nor determined if they were connected to Election Day, and she added many communities use schools as polling locations because of their location and accessibility to voters with disabilities.
But Maine School Management Association spokesperson Robbie Feinberg, who testified against the bill also on behalf of the legislative committees for the state superintendent and school board associations, noted Bellows led a 2023 working group on polling locations at schools that produced a survey indicating a broad majority of people feel safe at polling places.
“Establishing Election Day as a state holiday would require closing schools, disrupting learning and creating unnecessary challenges for families who rely on school schedules for consistency and for child care,” Feinberg said.
In response to questions from committee members, Poirier said she would be open to further amending her proposal to ensure the holiday does not count against a school’s limited number of remote learning or teacher development days.
Members on both sides of the aisle, such as Reps. Will Tuell, R-East Machias, and Lynn Copeland, D-Saco, also questioned Feinberg on why superintendents and other school officials are against the plan if it only affects one day every other year.
Feinberg said administrators and school boards believe in letting local districts decide on how to treat Election Day in terms of staying open or using remote learning, for example. Feinberg also said it is a “continuity of learning” issue.
“What we really hear from our superintendents is just even losing one extra day would be a real impact on our students,” Feinberg said.
