Andy Schmidt lives in Portland.

I play on an adult soccer team. Recently, during an intersquad scrimmage, our captain Larry served as both striker and referee. He fell in front of the goal and kicked the ball in. “No sliding! No goal!” we yelled. Larry ruled it a fall, not a slide. We heckled. Later, he overcompensated and made calls against his own side. The conflict ran both ways. We laughed about it afterward because it was a scrimmage and we’re all friends.

The gubernatorial race is not a scrimmage, and no player can be the referee.

Maine’s 2026 Democratic primary is shaping up to be a serious, substantive contest. I’m genuinely excited about several candidates. I haven’t decided how I’ll rank my ballot, and thanks to ranked-choice voting, I don’t have to choose just one good option.

I’m considering ranking Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. But I can’t do so while she continues to serve as the official overseeing the very election she’s running in. This isn’t about Bellows’ qualifications or her record, much of which I admire. It’s about a basic principle of democratic governance: the person who runs the election shouldn’t be on the ballot.

The Secretary of State’s office certifies candidates, oversees ballot access, adjudicates eligibility disputes and presides over the counting and certification of results. These aren’t ceremonial duties. They are the machinery of democracy itself, and they demand impartiality — not just in practice, but in appearance.

Consider a scenario that is far from hypothetical. One of Bellows’ rivals is Nirav Shah, who moved to Maine in 2019 after leaving Illinois amid controversy surrounding a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak at a veterans’ home. During the 2020-21 pandemic, Shah became a trusted public health voice for many Mainers, especially Democratic voters. In 2023, he left for a senior position at the CDC in Atlanta and returned to Maine in early 2025.

The Maine Constitution requires that a governor “have been five years a resident of the state,” and in Finks v. Secretary of State, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled those five years need not be consecutive. By my back-of-the-envelope math, Shah might meet the requirement — but just barely.

If there is a challenge, the Secretary of State’s office would have to examine the facts. When exactly did Shah establish residency in 2019? When did he leave for Atlanta? Did he vote in Maine while working for the CDC, or register in Georgia? Where did he file taxes? And unlike candidates with lifelong Maine ties, Shah’s entire residency history begins in 2019. There is no deep well to fall back on — just the roughly three years before Atlanta and the roughly two years after.

I believe Bellows would make the legally correct decision. But that’s not the point. This isn’t about whether she would act in good faith. It’s about whether any decision she makes — especially one affecting a rival — can plausibly be viewed as legitimate by the public. With our election mechanisms under attack by the Trump administration, the state level administration must be above reproach. Even unfounded doubt is corrosive. And it is entirely avoidable.

When Republican Secretary of State Charlie Summers ran for U.S. Senate in 2012 without resigning, the Maine People’s Alliance (MPA) called it “an inherent conflict of interest.” This situation is more fraught: a crowded ranked-choice primary where ballot access, candidate eligibility and vote tabulation all run through the office of one of the contestants. The MPA now should announce that its continued endorsement requires Bellows’ immediate resignation as secretary.

Delegating duties to a deputy is not a solution. Delegation does not eliminate a conflict of interest; it merely obscures it. A subordinate who serves at the pleasure of the secretary of state is not independent of her.

Bellows has built a career championing election integrity. She should understand better than anyone that trust in democratic institutions depends not only on fairness, but on the perception of fairness. She should step down before there is a cloud.

Maine deserves an election where every candidate competes on equal footing — and where no one is both player and referee.