A conservative legal organization has filed an election complaint in Maine, alleging that the state’s voter rolls include more than 3,000 people who may have died and hundreds of duplicate registrations. The filing came just days before voters head to the polls for the midterm elections.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) said it identified 3,181 potentially deceased voters and 693 duplicate registrations. It is urging state officials to review the records and take corrective steps.
“Now we know why they were hiding them, because there were problems on them,” PILF President J. Christian Adams said. He pointed to the potentially deceased voters, duplicate records and other issues, adding that the state should have addressed them earlier.
The complaint, submitted to Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, argues that election officials have not made a reasonable effort to remove ineligible voters from the official rolls. Adams questioned why an outside group had to identify the potential duplicates.
PILF is asking Maine to take further corrective action. If the state does not act, the group says it may pursue an appeal under the Help America Vote Act, a 2002 election reform law.
The group compared its latest findings with a review it conducted in 2025, when it reported 18,453 potentially deceased voters and 1,498 duplicate or triplicate registration records. Maine addressed many of those records, PILF said, but some issues remain and new ones have emerged.
For its review, the organization searched for records with matching names, birth years and addresses. It also looked for possible matches involving spelling mistakes, punctuation differences, nicknames and discrepancies in birth years.
The complaint asks Maine to examine PILF’s analysis, remove any ineligible voters it identifies and put a plan in place to comply with HAVA going forward. Adams said he hopes the state will remove the duplicate registrations.
Adams said PILF has been involved in a lengthy legal dispute with Maine over access to voter records. The group sued the state about six years ago and won a federal appeals court case in 2024 that required Maine to release the records.
He accused Bellows of trying to keep the public from seeing how the state manages its voter rolls, and said she was focused on political arguments rather than keeping the lists accurate. Bellows’ office was contacted for comment.
Adams also raised concerns that someone could use a deceased person’s registration to vote unlawfully. He said some officials may hesitate to remove deceased voters because of the risk of mistakenly removing eligible voters, but warned that leaving records in place could create opportunities for fraud.
The complaint arrives just days before a closely watched Maine Senate election between Republican incumbent Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson. The outcome could affect which party controls the Senate.
