Good news: Question 1 fails, Question 2 passes
QUESTION 1: “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?”
QUESTION 2: “Do you want to allow courts to temporarily prohibit a person from having dangerous weapons if law enforcement, family, or household members show that the person poses a significant danger of causing physical injury to themselves or others?”
Both measures went the right way by overwhelming margins, which was not expected.
The Maine Campus
“We don’t have a ton of polling available on this and what we do have suggests both Q1 and Q2 are going to be very close. This means whether they pass or not is a function of turnout,” said [University of Maine Associate Professor of Political Science Robert] Glover.
Question 1 was being pushed by Leonard Leo:
Zeteo
Leonard Leo, the conservative operative who built Donald Trump’s radical right-wing supermajority on the Supreme Court, is spending big money to make it harder to vote in Maine, ahead of Susan Collins’s crucial reelection fight next year.
Leo is already a divisive figure in the Pine Tree State: His mansion in the Bar Harbor area has been the site of frequent protests ever since the high court’s conservatives overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the federal right to an abortion. Neighbors and visitors regularly decry Leo’s influence on US politics and the judiciary, much of which flows through his historic $1.6 billion dark-money slush fund.
Impetus to take action on gun violence was sparked by the mass shooting in October, 2023, in Lewiston that took the lives of 18 people at a bowling alley and bar.
WABI
Currently, under Maine’s yellow flag law, law enforcement can take a person into custody for a mental health evaluation before a dangerous weapon can be taken away.
30 days following that process, a judge then makes the decision on restricting someone’s firearm access.
Under red flag, family members can go straight to a judge.
