Shenna Bellows, Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, removed a ballot question on transgender athletes Tuesday that she had previously cleared to go before voters in November. She cited evidence that thousands of petition signatures submitted by the measure’s proponents were not valid.
Multiple people who collected the signatures required to get the question on the ballot were found to have violated the state’s rules for such petitions, according to Ms. Bellows. Some submitted signatures from voters who later testified that they had never signed the petition, or even seen it, according to her written decision. Others left petitions unattended and then falsely signed oaths that they had witnessed every signature.
“My decision is grounded in the facts, the evidence presented and the laws of the state,” Ms. Bellows said at a news conference on Tuesday. “Nothing outside my role as secretary has entered into this decision.”
The proponents have 10 days to appeal her decision to the state’s Superior Court, Ms. Bellows said. The court may uphold her decision, reject it and reinstate the question on the ballot, or order further review of the petition.
The question, proposed by a group called Protect Girls Sports in Maine, would require schools to restrict girls’ athletic teams, locker rooms, showers and bathrooms to students whose biological sex at birth was female. Richard Uihlein, a Republican megadonor from Illinois, financed the effort to place the question on the ballot.
Under the state’s nondiscrimination law, transgender girls are currently allowed to play on girls’ sports teams.
Similar ballot questions are moving forward in Colorado and Washington. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule before July on whether states can ban transgender women from women’s sports teams; 27 states have laws blocking their participation.
Maine’s stance on transgender student athletes has been a focus of national attention since Gov. Janet Mills, a term-limited Democrat, sparred with President Trump over the issue last year. Her defense of the state’s nondiscrimination law set off months of conflict with his administration and multiple federal investigations.
Ms. Bellows, who is running for governor in a crowded Democratic field, has been a target of conservative ire since the run-up to the 2024 election, when she barred Mr. Trump from appearing on Maine’s primary ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Supreme Court later ruled that states could not disqualify candidates.
Her decision to remove the ballot question set off a new wave of Republican criticism.
“Shenna Bellows has a bad habit of abusing her power as secretary of state for her own political agenda, and she needs to be stopped,” Jim Deyermond, chairman of the Maine Republican Party, said in a statement.
Ms. Bellows, a former executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Maine, has campaigned for governor as a progressive, pledging support for universal health care and lower housing costs. The Democratic primary will be held June 9.
The group that initiated the ballot question said in a statement on X that it intended to “ensure full judicial review of the Secretary’s decision.” Leyland Streiff, a leader of Protect Girls Sports in Maine, said in a brief phone call on Wednesday that it would be inappropriate to comment further while the legal process is still unfolding.
“The courts, not the Secretary, should have the final word on this important matter,” the group’s statement said.
The group began working to get the question on the ballot after a similar legislative proposal failed to gain traction. It paid people a few dollars per signature to solicit signers around the state — a practice allowed in Maine since a successful legal challenge to its former rules for citizen petitions — and collected more than 82,000, enough to qualify for the November ballot.
Ms. Bellows validated the group’s petition in March, clearing the question’s path to the ballot. But soon after, three Maine voters appealed her decision in Superior Court, raising questions about some of the signatures. The court directed Ms. Bellows to investigate further; at a hearing on May 12, a member of her staff reviewed evidence and witness statements.
The findings, Ms. Bellows said on Tuesday, showed repeated violations of rules Maine had put in place “to safeguard our process.” Witnesses described multiple instances in which petitions were left unattended, and dozens of signatures that were added without being witnessed by petition circulators.
At least one voter whose name appeared on the petition testified under oath that she had not signed it, “and indeed had never heard of” the petition. Further review found multiple petition pages where none of the signatures submitted to the state resembled those of the purported signers on their voter registration forms.
Ms. Bellows invalidated more than 12,000 signatures after the recent hearing and had previously invalidated a number of others; that left the question’s proponents 532 signatures short of the 67,682 that they needed for the ballot.
“My staff sat for hours with the leaders of this initiative to walk them through the process,” Ms. Bellows said at the news conference. “Either they didn’t follow the training, or they failed to train their circulators.”
She declined to say whether any signature collectors might be charged with forgery or fraud as a result of the findings.
Jenna Russell is the lead reporter covering New England for The Times. She is based near Boston.
The post Maine Secretary of State Tosses Ballot Question on Transgender Athletes appeared first on New York Times.
