Amid a pandemic and surging early voter turnout, Election Day is shaping up to be quite different than previous years.
An August executive order by Gov. Janet Mills requires that all in-person voters must wear a face covering to the polls to protect election officials and other voters. Social distancing requirements and reduced capacity limits for indoor gatherings could mean lines and longer wait times for Maine voters who have not yet cast their ballots.
However, according to the Maine Secretary of State’s Office, more than 491,000 ballots have been cast already. In comparison, 747,927 votes in total were cast in the 2016 presidential election in Maine, with about 140,000 people voting by absentee ballot.
As election officials race to tabulate record numbers of absentee and early voter ballots, some experts say that we might not know the official outcome of many races for days to come.
To push back against the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the electoral system, democracy defense advocates are calling on voters to come out to the polls, share their experience voting and help others in their communities who might face intimidation at the polls.
Polling locations — which may have changed since the last election and can be found here — close at 8 p.m in Maine.
Some of the races Beacon is watching today
In Portland, voters will decide on a package of five progressive referenda. Championed by a coalition of advocates under the umbrella “People First Portland,” the initiatives would restrict short-term rentals, introduce a $15 minimum wage, ban facial surveillance technology, enact a Green New Deal for sustainable building and control rent increases. Voters in Rockland will also decide whether or not to implement $15 minimum wage in the city. If the measures pass in both Portland and Rockland, the two cities will become the first in the state with $15 minimum wages.
In state legislative races, we will be keeping an eye on the 29 current or former educators running for elected office this cycle, the likely largest group ever to run for office. These candidates — 17 of whom are members of the Maine Educational Association — hope to shape education policy, expand teachers’ bargaining rights and protect Maine’s public schools from budget cuts.
Senate Minority Leader Dana Dow (R-Waldoboro) told the Bangor Daily News this October that the state’s education budget could be subject to cuts as the state recovers from revenue shortfalls caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Rep. Chloe Maxmin, a 27-year-old progressive Democrat from Nobleboro, hopes to unseat Dow. Earlier this fall, a shadowy PAC administered “push-poll” in support of Dow, which stated that Maxmin is in league with “radical liberals” from New York and California.
Another right-wing PAC, this one based in Washington D.C., dropped thousands of dollars in opposition to Rep. Bettyann Sheats (D-Auburn). Make Liberty Win PAC sent dozens of libertarian “youth activists” from across the country to knock doors in Sheats’ district to distribute literature and canvass for her Republican challenger, Laurel Libby.
Though she appears to have ended her public-facing relationship with the movement, Libby was a prominent voice in the fight to veto a law that tightened the vaccine mandate for students in public schools. Though the people’s veto initiative failed by a margin of 73-27 last spring, its proponents remain organized behind the Mainers for Health and Parental Rights PAC, which spent nearly $200,000 on legislative campaigns this election cycle, according to financial disclosures.
Many across the country will be closely tracking the results of the U.S. Senate race in Maine, where Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Sara Gideon are within points of each other in recent polls. The outcome of the race could determine which party holds a majority in the Senate, and the campaign has been the most expensive in state history.
Among the issues at the forefront of the race is health care. Gideon’s health care agenda includes a public option health insurance system and calls for dramatically lowering the prices of generic prescription drugs.
Collins has accepted half a million dollars over the course of her Senate career in campaign contributions from Big Pharma and has cast several votes to block price-reducing regulations on the industry. She also cast a decisive vote in favor of the 2017 GOP tax bill that dealt a blow to the Affordable Care Act, setting the stage for a Supreme Court case that could overturn the law entirely, potentially stripping health insurance from 95,000 Mainers and tens of millions of Americans.
The COVID-19 pandemic will also be front and center in voters’ minds. Governor Janet Mills said during Monday’s press briefing that “it’s been very frustrating” to not have a relief package passed “in recent weeks and months from the United States Senate and from the administration. And it’s a frustration that I think is showing in some of the polling we’ve read about.”
For up to the minute election coverage after the polls close, tune into Beacon’s election night broadcast, live between 8:15 p.m. and 10:15 p.m..
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