While Maine has been a leader on voting rights, further steps can be taken to preserve and protect our democratic republic.

And, lest we think the Pine Tree State’s accomplishments can’t be reversed, we should remember some recent history.

Ten years ago Maine’s secretary of state certified petitions for a people’s veto to maintain its system of election day voter registration, which had been adopted in a bipartisan vote in 1973. Research shows that election day registration increases turnout. Younger people are most affected because they are more likely to be renters and move more often.

A broad pro-democracy coalition succeeded spectacularly, with a strong vote of 60%-40% and support from every state legislative district to bring back this process.

Along the way, the campaign for Election Day registration encountered anti-democratic arguments and Maine’s own big lies about voter fraud.

Matthew Gagnon, now the chief executive officer of the conservative Maine Policy Institute, wrote then he “would prefer it if fewer people voted.” Ignoring the fact that the people who don’t need to re-register are simply those who stayed put in their homes, Gagnon contended that requiring registration before election day yields more informed voters who “think about voting before you can actually vote.”

And, in the summer of 2011, Maine Republican Chairman Charlie Webster contended there was voting fraud by out-of-state students. An investigation by the secretary of state found no evidence. Before that, Webster had claimed, “Democrats have managed to steal elections from Maine people” via election day registration. Afterwards, Webster spun a tall tale involving race and fear, citing “dozens of black people” voting in some rural Maine towns.

More recently Maine adopted numerous pro-voter reforms. Now seniors and disabled people can sign up to have absentee ballots sent to them every election. Student identifications can be used to register to vote. The ballot dropboxes used during the pandemic elections of 2020 can return and Mainers will again be able to track whether their mailed in or dropped off ballots have been processed or if there were issues, like unmatched signatures, they can resolve. Voter registration has been modernized, so that Maine will join other states in enabling people to register online. An automatic voter registration system will be created by 2022, and will involve situations when Mainers interact with “state agencies where they are already asked to provide proof of eligibility to vote: identity, address, citizenship, and signature.”

Although Maine has done a lot already to secure access to the ballot, it could do more.

For one, in-person early voting could be expanded to more municipalities in the state.

For another, the state could consolidate the times elections are held. When local elections are held at a different time from state and national elections, they often have low turnout. As one analyst notes, “Compared to midterm and presidential elections, off-year local elections see a drop in voter turnout as much as 40%. Evidence shows that low turnout favors special interests. States as varied as California and Oklahoma have moved to synchronize local contests with even-year November elections to reduce costs and increase participation.”

The history of voting in the United States shows that both parties have tried to limit this right. It used to be that Democrats, particularly in the South, were more likely to restrict voting rights based on race. In more recent years, Republicans have backed laws that make it harder to vote. But even this isn’t the whole story. In Maine, election day registration was originally adopted across party lines. In Congress, the Voting Rights Act was last reauthorized for 25 years in 2006 with massive support in the House and backing from every U.S. senator.

And so, because elections administered in other states have national effects, Maine’s entire federal delegation should counter laws making it more difficult to vote. As the Brennan Center reported, “Between January 1 and July 14, 2021, at least 18 states enacted 30 laws that restrict access to the vote. These laws make mail voting and early voting more difficult, impose harsher voter ID requirements, and make faulty voter purges more likely, among other things.”

A critical step would be for the Senate to join the House of Representatives to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Doing so will probably require ending or modifying the filibuster, a Senate rule most often used to block civil rights and voting rights legislation.

But if we are to fulfill the promise of a nation that, as Lincoln proclaimed, is ruled “of the people, by the people and for the people,” voting rights must be further secured.

Amy Fried is a member Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications. Members’ columns appear monthly.