Watchdog Flags 3,181 Possible Dead Voters on Maine Rolls Before Election

A conservative legal group says it found 3,181 potentially dead voters and 693 duplicate registrations on Maine's voter rolls, days before Tuesday's midterm elections.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) filed an election complaint with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, arguing officials have not made a "reasonable effort" to remove ineligible voters as required under the Help America Vote Act, a 2002 election reform law. It asks the state to review the analysis, immediately remove ineligible voters and map out a plan to stay compliant. PILF warns that otherwise it "may have no other recourse" than to pursue HAVA's complaint process.

The group's 2025 review found far more: 18,453 potentially dead voters and 1,498 duplicate or triplicate records. PILF says Maine fixed many of them, but some errors remain and "new problems have arisen." Its method matched records sharing an address, first and last name and birth year, while also checking for typos, nicknames and birth-year discrepancies. These are potential problems flagged by the group, not confirmed illegal votes.

"Why does it take a third-party group like the Public Interest Legal Foundation to find these duplicates?" PILF president J. Christian Adams said. He said the problems "should have been fixed a long time ago" and accused Bellows of "defending sort of blue theories." PILF won a 2024 federal appeals court case requiring Maine to make the records public.

Fox News Digital asked Bellows' office for comment; the article reports no response. Bellows is also a candidate for governor. The filing lands as Republican Sen. Susan Collins faces Democrat Troy Jackson in a tight race that could decide control of the Senate.