Maine voters will decide on a ballot initiative next month to ban foreign governments, or entities with at least 5% foreign government ownership or control, from spending money to influence ballot measures or candidate elections. If approved, Maine would join California, Colorado, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Washington in prohibiting foreign nationals from…
In Maine and Ohio, more citizen-initiated ballot measures qualified in 2023 than the average for odd-numbered years between 2011 and 2021 for each respective state. Maine initiative sponsors filed six initiatives and qualified four of the measures for the Nov. 2023 ballot. For the last six odd-numbered years, an average of nearly seven initiatives were…
Maine voters will decide on whether to change the design of the state flag on Nov. 5, 2024. This is the first certified statewide measure for the Maine 2024 ballot. The ballot measure would replace the current Maine state flag, which features the state’s coat of arms, with the first official state flag called the…
During a special legislative session, the Maine State Legislature approved four constitutional amendments on July 25 that will appear on the November ballot. Maine voters will decide on these four amendments, as well as four citizen-initiated state statutes, on Nov. 7, 2023. This is the greatest amount of statewide measures to appear on the Maine…
An initiated state statute to prohibit election spending by foreign governments, including entities with partial government ownership or control, will appear on the Maine ballot on Nov. 7, 2023. In Nov. 2022, Protect Maine Elections, which is the campaign behind the initiative, submitted 67,550 valid signatures, meeting the signature requirement of 63,067 signatures, and was…
Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) vetoed an indirect initiative that would prohibit election spending by foreign governments, including entities with partial government ownership or control, on July 19, 2023. Voters will decide on the indirect initiative on Nov. 7, 2023, unless the Legislature overrides the governor’s veto. In Maine, citizen-initiated state statutes must meet a…
An initiative that would require voter approval of borrowing above $1 billion by state entities and electric cooperatives was certified to the Maine ballot and will go to voters for approval on Nov. 7, 2023. The No Blank Checks PAC is leading the campaign in support of the initiative. On Dec. 27, 2022, 93,000 signatures…
A Right to Repair initiative will appear on the Maine ballot on Nov. 7, 2023. The initiative would allow car owners and independent repair facilities to have the same access to onboard diagnostic systems and wireless data that manufacturers and approved repair facilities have access to. According to The Repair Association, an organization advocating for…
Voters in Augusta, Maine will decide on Question 1 on June 13, 2023, which would approve the school budget of $36.25 million for K-12 education for the 2023-2024 school year. In Maine, school districts are required to have elections to approve a budget or to issue new bonding and or bond taxes. If a budget…
An initiative to create a municipal electric transmission and distribution utility, replacing Central Maine Power and Versant Power, will be on the Maine ballot on Nov. 7, 2023. The campaign supporting the initiative, Our Power Maine, submitted 69,735 valid signatures in 2022 to certify the initiative to the legislature. After the signatures were verified, the…