Maine legislature must fix the mis-information about citizens veto election date

What a mess! 

Maine secretary of state gave people’s veto efforts bad guidance on election date- Bangor Daily News by Michael Shepherd. Following the publication of this article, the Bangor Daily News published an editorial to support the groups that are looking to overturn the Secretary of State's wrong advice.  

AUGUSTA, Maine — Leaders of three efforts to overturn major laws passed by Maine’s Democratic-led Legislature said they’re considering “all options” — including a referendum and lawsuits — after getting inconsistent guidance on the timing of a people’s veto election.

The office of Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, a Democrat, told the Bangor Daily News last month, if the recall efforts made the ballot, the election would be in March 2020, because of a constitutional provision slating people’s veto efforts for the next statewide election.

Proponents of the effort said Dunlap’s office told them at the outset of their campaigns, that the election would be held in June. 

There’s a major difference between the two, since March is when Democrats will hold Maine’s new presidential primary. With Donald Trump facing no serious Republican primary threat, the electorate in March would be dominated by Democrats.

They would be unlikely to back the people’s veto efforts, which would mostly rely on conservatives who favor repealing laws passed in 2019, to allow doctors to prescribe (suicide) life-ending medication to terminally ill patients, allow abortions to be funded with state Medicaid money and end nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine requirements (and others).

Backers of those campaigns met with Dunlap on Thursday, where he took responsibility for the unclear guidance given by his office. He said later in the day that his office did not account for the new primary law — which passed at the end of the legislative session in June — when giving the guidance days later. His office’s stance is that the election will be in March.