Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said Wednesday she will seek a fourth and final term as Maine’s top elections official.

Bellows, 51, became the first woman to serve as Maine’s secretary of state when lawmakers elected her in 2020, and she won additional two-year terms in 2022 and 2024. Maine’s constitutional officers can serve up to four consecutive terms.

The Democrat from Manchester will need her party to keep its narrow majority in the House and Senate in the November election, as Maine is one of three states where members of the Legislature vote to appoint the secretary of state.

Bellows pointed Wednesday to her work overseeing record-high voter turnout in Maine and implementing online and automatic voter registration at Bureau of Motor Vehicles offices during her time as secretary of state.

“In these challenging times for elections,” she said in a text message, “I bring a strong track record of standing up for the voting rights for every Mainer no matter what the challenge.”

Winning a final term would end a stretch of Bellows falling short in other high-profile races. Her base of progressive support was not enough to boost her when running to succeed Gov. Janet Mills this year, as she finished fourth in June’s five-way Democratic gubernatorial primary won by former Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree.

Bellows then made an unsuccessful bid to replace Sullivan oysterman Graham Platner on the U.S. Senate ballot, with former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson winning that role in the high-profile race to unseat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. Bellows ran against Collins in 2014 and lost handily as the Democratic nominee.

Bellows, who grew up in Hancock, previously led the ACLU of Maine and the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine, among other groups. She served as a state senator from 2016 to 2020 in an Augusta-area district that included several towns that had backed President Donald Trump in his races.

She has become known for her clashes with Trump over the years. Bellows drew attention beyond Maine in late 2023 when she ruled Trump ineligible for the 2024 presidential primary ballot, citing his role in stoking the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and the 14th Amendment ban on insurrectionists holding certain federal offices.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled such decisions in Maine and Colorado ahead of the primary. Republicans in the State House made unsuccessful attempts to impeach her over her Trump ruling.

The Trump administration filed a lawsuit against Bellows last fall seeking access to Maine’s voter registration data, but a federal judge dismissed the case in May. Trump’s Justice Department has also sued Maine in a pending case over Bellows declining to give undercover license plates to federal law enforcement agents earlier this year. Bellows oversees the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

At least one of the three constitutional officer positions may open up by December. State Auditor Matt Dunlap, an Old Town Democrat who preceded Bellows as secretary of state, is running in November against former Gov. Paul LePage in the 2nd Congressional District contest to succeed U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine.

State Treasurer Joe Perry, a former state representative from Bangor, said Wednesday he plans to run again for the role he began in 2024.

“One thing I learned is … it takes most of your first term to get used to or comfortable with the job, so I’d be ashamed to call it quits now,” Perry, 60, said in a text message.