AUGUSTA — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said Tuesday she will not comply with a federal directive to turn over state voter files, joining other top election officials across the country in rejecting the Department of Justice request.
“The DOJ doesn’t get to know everything about you just because they want to,” she said. “I believe strongly in voter privacy. The federal government is overstepping its bounds.”
Bellows said the DOJ told the National Association of Secretaries of State that all states will be asked to turn over similar information.
During an Augusta news conference, Bellows read part of the Constitution’s Article I, which says that states are in charge of running elections.
The Justice Department’s public affairs office responded “no comment” to a Spectrum News request for information about why they want the information and whether all states are being asked to comply.
According to USA Today, the DOJ started asking battleground states for the information in June. The request follows a March executive order signed by President Donald Trump focused on election integrity.
Bellows floated other theories about why the federal government is asking for the files.
“I don’t know if it’s because they are trying to change the topic away from the Epstein files or because they are trying to sow false narratives to undermine voter confidence in our strong election systems,” she said.
The three-page DOJ letter dated July 24 asks the state to provide a wide range of information, including a list of all election officials involved in maintaining the voter list. And while Bellows said some voter information is routinely used by political parties during campaigns, they are not granted access to personal information such as birth dates and Social Security numbers.
She said during the first Trump administration former Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap also refused to turn over the voter list. Both Dunlap and Bellows are Democrats appointed to the position by the majority in the state Legislature.
Bellows, who is running for governor in 2026, said she would deny the request from federal officials regardless of who is president and regardless of political party.
She said she did not think the request is related to allegations of potential double voting leveled in June by the Maine Republican Party. Bellows’ office investigated each instance of potential dual voting and found none of them to be credible.
She said she will work with the state attorney general’s office on an official response to the DOJ request, saying she believes it may violate state and federal law.
“What the DOJ is asking is unprecedented,” she said. “Again it’s an abuse of power and it contravenes what the founders set forth in the Constitution.”