Voters cast ballots at the Expo Center in Portland, Maine during the 2023 November election. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
The November election is just six weeks away and Maine is continuing to see record engagement from voters who want to ensure they can cast their vote.
More than 2,450 Mainers used the state’s online system to either register to vote or ensure their registration was up to date last Tuesday, which was National Voter Registration Day. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a news release that it marked record usage for the online system.
Maine has seen a surge in online voter registration in recent weeks. Between new registrations, duplicates (those who may not be sure if they previously registered) and updates such as a name or address change, there were nearly 5,500 new registration last week and another 5,760 the week prior.
Those two weeks saw nearly the same amount of new registrations than all of July, August and the first part of September combined.
Additionally, in the two weeks after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed the now-Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, Maine saw another spike in registrations. At the time, the nearly 3,800 Mainers who registered to vote in July was higher than every month since the 2023 November election.
Data on total new registrations in the past few weeks, including those who used paper registration cards at municipal offices, isn’t available yet, the Secretary of State’s Office noted.
In-person absentee voting begins on Oct. 6.
Mainers who aren’t sure if they registered or if their information is up-to-date should contact their municipal clerk. The state does not have an online tool to lookup registration information, but contact information for municipal clerks and registrars is available on the Secretary of State’s website.
To ensure that elections are accessible to people with a variety of disabilities the state rolled out a new ongoing absentee voting option earlier this year. Voters who will be 65 or older by November or who self-identify as having a disability can apply for ongoing absentee ballots by filling out a form available on the Secretary of State’s website.
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