AUGUSTA — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said this week she will seek a fourth and final term as the head of state elections.

A Democrat, Bellows ran for governor and the U.S. Senate this year but failed to advance in either race. She said she would like to serve two more years to oversee Maine elections.

“I think 2028 will be a huge year,” she said. “In fact, some of the challenges and attacks on voting rights we’ve seen in 2026 are just a warm-up act for what could happen in a presidential election in 2028.”

Maine is one of only twelve states in which the Secretary of State is appointed by either the governor or the Legislature, rather than popularly elected. 

Bellows would need a majority of the new members of the House and Senate to be Democrats to have any hope of being chosen for another term.

She drew controversy in late 2023 by deciding that President Donald Trump’s name should not appear on Maine Republican primary ballots because she believed he violated the Constitution by sparking the 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Ultimately Trump’s name did appear on ballots following a ruling by the Supreme Court in a similar case out of Colorado.

But Bellows’ decision prompted Maine Republicans to attempt to remove her from office, an effort shot down by majority Democrats. 

For her part, Bellows says she’s accomplished a lot in her six years as secretary, including automatic voter registration when people sign up for a driver’s license, online voter registration and a more secure central voter registration system.

“In my fourth term, I have my eye on voter lookup,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be great if voters could look up their own voter registration status online?”