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- Title
Voting Restriction Politics in Maine.
- Authors
Fried, Amy; Shaw, Emily
- Abstract
In recent years, many states passed laws restricting voting. Maine followed suit in 2011 but, unlike those states, the law-which ended election-day registration--was reversed at the ballot box. This paper explains what happened in Maine by pointing to a series of cultural and political factors, some of which interacted. Key elements were Maine's civic culture and pride in high levels of civic participation, the existence of the referendum option, the creation of an effective coalition and organizational structure to restore the practice, messaging choices, and extensive publicity about unproven fraud allegations. Supporters of the law were less well-funded and organized and received their strongest support in areas of the state where Governor LePage had received his highest proportions of the vote in the 2010 election. Future analyses of activities involving state-level voting laws should take account of political culture, organizational efforts, and political dynamics.
- Subjects
MAINE; UNITED States; VOTING laws; ELECTION law; REFERENDUM; POLITICAL culture; CORRUPT practices in elections
- Publication
New England Journal of Political Science, 2011, Vol 6, Issue 2, p293
- ISSN
1550-1604
- Publication type
Article