for the Implementation of the
Help America Vote Act of 2002
(Public Law 107-252)

I am pleased to submit to you the State of Maine Preliminary State Plan for the Implementation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), enacted by Congress on October 29, 2002, is the most significant piece of federal election reform legislation in the past 30 years. The federal law seeks to enhance the accessibility and integrity of elections across the country and authorizes federal funding to assist states in meeting the law's requirements. HAVA presents Maine with an exciting opportunity to enhance our elections with an unprecedented level of resources. This Preliminary State Plan outlines Maine's strategy for complying with the federal requirements and refining our elections process.

Maine has a long and proud tradition of implementing election laws, procedures and practices to encourage a high level of voter access and participation and to instill confidence in the integrity and accuracy of election results. As a result, Maine is well positioned to meet many of the HAVA's requirements. However, the State's compliance with all requirements will necessitate substantial efforts at the State and municipal level and full funding by Congress.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the State Plan Advisory Committee, comprised of a variety of stakeholders, who worked with me to craft our plan. In Maine, the successful conduct of elections is a cooperative effort of State and municipal election officials. The success of our elections process also relies on the confidence and participation of all Maine citizens. The State Plan Advisory Committee has set out a framework for continued cooperation as we implement HAVA. They have worked to create a plan that will help ensure that every vote counts as intended and that no voter is excluded from the process.

This plan sets out an ambitious agenda for implementing HAVA and enhancing Maine's elections process. With the continued dedication of election officials, civic organizations and Maine's citizens, I am confident we will meet our goals and continue to lead the nation with citizen participation and voter confidence in our elections. I hope you will share your thoughts with us about this Preliminary State Plan, and Maine's election process.

Sincerely,

Dan A. Gwadosky
Maine Secretary of State

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) is a landmark piece of election reform legislation that seeks to enhance the integrity of our elections process by establishing certain minimum standards for the conduct of federal elections. HAVA also authorizes the federal government to make funds available to states for the purposes of implementing the requirements of the law and making other election improvements.

In Maine, our election laws and practices are strong and we are already in compliance with several of the federal requirements contained in the Help America Vote Act, including the provisional voting requirements, most voting information requirements, and all voting system requirements except for the disability access provisions.

We will, however, need to obtain all possible funds to execute the requirements of HAVA that we do not meet. The single biggest challenge Maine faces in complying with HAVA is the development and implementation of a statewide computerized central voter registration list. Due to the current decentralized process of maintaining the voter registration lists in each municipality, implementation of the central voter registration list will require the greatest use of HAVA resources. Another significant challenge will be compliance with the disability accessibility requirements for voting systems. The planning, technology, and training necessary to implement these provisions require most of the resources available through HAVA. Without full funding, Maine will not achieve full compliance.

Maine's Current Election Process
State and Federal elections in Maine are conducted in a manner used mostly in the New England States, which dates back to our country's earliest traditions of government. Maine's election process is a partnership between the State and the municipalities.

The Secretary of State is the chief state election official, and has central authority to oversee the application of the State's election laws and procedures; approve voting machines for use by municipalities; train and advise municipal election officials in the proper conduct of statewide elections; design, prepare and distribute ballots and other election forms in a consistent format for all municipalities; collect and compile statewide reports of election results and voter registration figures; and conduct recounts centrally following uniform procedures. The staff of the Division of Elections carries out these election activities on behalf of the Secretary of State.

The conduct of elections and voter registration is decentralized, occurring in 503 separate voting jurisdictions. These jurisdictions include municipalities, plantations and a small number of unorganized townships that administer their own elections, and range in the number of registered voters from 2 to 50,799. Each jurisdiction has a Clerk, who is responsible for conducting elections, and a Registrar of Voters, who is responsible for voter registration activities. In many jurisdictions, one person holds both of these positions.

The local jurisdictions are responsible for determining the location of voting places; securing accessible buildings and arranging the voting area for each election; obtaining voting booths and other equipment necessary for the election; and electing or appointing election officials and ensuring their training. In addition, municipalities that do not wish to use hand-counted paper ballots must purchase State-approved voting machines.

There are a total of 627 precincts statewide. The majority of jurisdictions have a single voting precinct, while the larger municipalities have up to 20 precincts. As of the November 2002 General Election there were 950,059 registered voters in Maine. About 92% of the voting jurisdictions have fewer than 5,000 registered voters, and over 50% of the jurisdictions have fewer than 900 registered voters.

Maine is a leader in adopting laws and procedures that remove barriers to registration and voting, encourage full citizen participation in the electoral process, and provide uniform and consistent voting procedures for all voters across the State. Since 1973, Maine has permitted new residents to register to vote in person up to and during Election Day, and has eliminated the length of residency requirement. Voters have also been allowed to register to vote by mail since 1973, and signature notarization requirements were eliminated in the late 1980's. Maine provided voter registration at motor vehicle branches five years before it was required under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), and added opportunities for voter registration at a variety of social service and public agencies when NVRA was adopted.

For decades, Maine has allowed absentee voting under certain circumstances both by mail and in the presence of the municipal clerk. In 1999, the election law was amended to allow any voter to cast an absentee ballot for any reason. In recent years, Maine has also expanded access to absentee voting by allowing voters to obtain a ballot via a telephone request, an immediate family member, a designated third person, or voting in the presence of the municipal clerk in certain licensed residential facilities.

Maine law also includes a fail-safe voting system, in the form of the challenged ballot. Qualified voters whose names do not appear on the voting list, or who are unable to show satisfactory proof of identity and residency upon registering to vote on Election Day, must be allowed to vote a challenged ballot. The challenge process protects the voter's right to vote. It also protects the integrity of the system by marking challenged ballots for later retrieval and a determination of validity if the results of the election could be affected by those ballots.

In the 1980's and 1990's, the Maine municipalities that used older voting technologies (e.g. mechanical lever machines and punch card voting systems) replaced those systems with newer optical scan precinct tabulators. Although only 22% of Maine's voting jurisdictions use optical scan systems, over 65% of the voters in Maine vote using one of these systems. All others vote using paper ballots that are counted by hand.

The Office of the Secretary of State has pioneered the use of its website to provide a wealth of election information to the public. From information on upcoming elections, including the Citizen's Guide to the Referendum Election and candidate listings, to information on registering to vote and absentee voting, to the results of prior elections over the past decade, Maine has used the web to create a vital link between the citizens of Maine and their democracy.

In an effort to ensure that municipal election officials have the tools they need to conduct election and voter registration duties according to current laws and procedures, the Secretary of State has created educational and instructional materials and has conducted voluntary training sessions for municipal clerks and registrars in partnership with the Maine Town and City Clerk's Association over the past decade. The Secretary of State also hosts a 2-day annual elections conference to combine specific training on election duties with other professional development sessions. In addition, Maine now requires that all municipal clerks and registrars attend at least one of these training programs during each two-year election cycle.

All of Maine's efforts to improve the accessibility and consistency of the State's voter registration and election processes have increased voter confidence in Maine's electoral process and likewise have increased voter participation dramatically in the last 30 years. In the Presidential Election of 1972, Maine's turnout was twenty-first in the nation. In the Presidential Elections of 1992 and 1996, Maine led the nation in voter turnout, and in 2000, Maine's turnout was second in the nation.

The Future of Maine's Elections
Maine, through the efforts of the Secretary of State, the Legislature, advocacy groups and other concerned citizens, has consistently updated its laws and procedures to enhance the integrity of the election process and increase citizen participation in democracy, and will continue to do so. HAVA bolsters those efforts by providing Maine with an unprecedented level of federal resources to make substantial election infrastructure improvements and technological advances. HAVA also mandates Maine to meet certain requirements. Full funding of HAVA will ensure that Maine meets these requirements.

This State Plan outlines Maine's approach to implementing HAVA. It does not attempt to address every detail of implementation, but provides a basic framework and budget for achieving compliance. Importantly, Maine recognizes that the requirements contained in HAVA are minimum requirements. This plan is not intended to prevent Maine from exceeding these minimum requirements.

1.  Title III Requirements and Other Activities

How the State will use the requirements payment to meet the requirements of title III, and, if applicable under section 251(b)(2), to carry out other activities to improve the administration of elections. -- HAVA §254 (a)(1)

Maine has 503 municipal jurisdictions and 627 precincts where voting is conducted for federal and state elections. The State approves the voting systems that may be purchased by municipalities and prepares all ballots in a consistent format for these voting systems. Two categories of voting systems are currently used in Maine. Hand counted paper ballots are used by 394 municipalities, and optical scan ballots are used by 109 municipalities. (Optical scan ballots are also paper based, but are machine counted using precinct tabulators.)

Verification and Correction of Ballots before Casting
Since all voting systems in Maine currently use a paper ballot, voters can verify their vote selections in a private and independent manner before their ballots are cast and counted. Voters are permitted to change a selection or otherwise correct any error on their ballots by returning their spoiled ballot to the election clerk and requesting a replacement ballot. (Voters may obtain up to 2 replacement ballots, or a total of 3 ballots.)

All optical scan voting systems in use in Maine are capable of being programmed to notify voters of overvotes (multiple votes cast for a candidate or question) and return those ballots to the voter for an opportunity to correct the error using a replacement ballot. The Secretary of State (in conjunction with municipal election officials and the vendors charged with programming or maintaining these systems) will implement this programming change by January 1, 2006.

The Secretary of State already has an extensive voter education program for each voting system currently in use. The Secretary of State provides instructions on how a voter can correct an error through the use of a replacement ballot and will enhance these instructions to describe the effect of an overvote.

Audit
The paper ballots and paper based optical scan ballots used in Maine elections serve as the paper record required for manual audits. Maine already utilizes a manual recount system for all types of ballots, satisfying the manual audit capacity requirement.

Disability Access
Maine will not have enough resources, even with the federal funding, to replace all the existing voting systems with accessible units. However, Maine will improve its accessibility and satisfy this requirement by purchasing at least one direct recording electronic voting system (DRE), or other system equipped for individuals with disabilities, per voting precinct. Although past practice by the State of Maine has been for the Secretary of State to approve voting systems that may be purchased by municipalities, the Secretary of State will go through a process to select the DRE's, or other compliant systems, and undertake a statewide purchase of those systems by January 1, 2006. The Secretary of State will explore joint purchasing agreements with other states. The purchase may include ongoing programming and maintenance costs associated with the selected systems.

The process for selecting any systems will include input from municipal election officials, members of various disability communities, senior citizen representatives, and other interested parties. The Secretary of State will consider, among other functionalities, the requirements of Maine's challenged ballot procedure, alternative language capabilities, and flexibility in programming for various election formats. The Secretary of State will ensure that the systems to be purchased meet all federal requirements.

The Secretary of State will incorporate extensive voter education and poll worker training for the new systems into its existing education and outreach programs prior to the first election in which they are used.

Alternative Language Accessibility
Although no jurisdiction in Maine is subject to the alternative language accessibility requirements of Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, voting systems approved in the future will be required to be capable of providing alternative language accessibility should it become necessary. In addition, the Secretary of State will monitor language trends throughout its various voting jurisdictions and will consider voluntary and targeted measures to increase citizen participation and access in those jurisdictions with significant populations of citizens who use languages other than English as their primary language.

Error Rates
Current voting systems used in Maine comply with the error rate standards established under section 3.2.1 of the voting system standards issued by the Federal Election Commission and in effect at the time that HAVA was enacted.

The following standard will apply to any new voting systems purchased by the State or approved by the Secretary of State for municipal purchase, including DRE's: For each processing function, the voting system shall achieve a target error rate of no more than 1 in 10 million ballot positions, with a maximum acceptable error rate in the test process of 1 in 500,000 ballot positions.

All systems submitted for certification in Maine will be required to provide documentation by the Independent Testing Authority, indicating that their systems comply with these error rates.

Uniform Definition of what Constitutes a Vote
Maine has a uniform state law requiring a determination of voter intent and has a uniform central recount procedure.

Maine statute requires that election officials must count each vote based on voter intent, even when the ballot is marked in a way that differs from the instructions. Before every election, the Secretary of State provides each municipality with uniform instructions for counting ballots, including instructions on counting specific types of ballots such as challenged ballots, invalid vote ballots, defective ballots and void ballots. In addition, the Secretary of State provides municipal election officials with training on how to determine voter intent. This training is based on case law and includes examples of common ballot mis-markings that still show voter intent.

Further enhancing the uniform application of voter intent at the municipal level is the Secretary of State's exclusive, central authority to conduct recounts. All recounts follow a well-established, uniform recount procedure, which includes instructions on counting certain types of ballots and determining voter intent.

Although the framework for determining voter intent is uniform, the Secretary of State will work in consultation with municipal election officials and other stakeholders to further clarify and define voter intent for each category of voting system used in Maine. The Secretary of State will work to incorporate these definitions into either statute or rule by January 1, 2006.

Provisional Voting Requirements
Maine's challenged ballot law (21-A M.R.S.A. §673) in combination with its Election Day registration law (21-A M.R.S.A. §122), meet the provisional voting requirements of HAVA. Maine law permits in-person voter registration on Election Day, and there is no length of residency requirement to qualify as a voter. Under current Maine law, any person whose name is not on the voting list on Election Day may show proof of identity and residency to the registrar and must then be allowed to vote. A voter whose name was removed from the voting list in error, may reinstate the registration at the polls, and be permitted to vote. A new voter who declares residency on Election Day, but does not have satisfactory proof of such residency, must be allowed to vote a challenged ballot. Maine's challenged ballot process achieves the required results of provisional voting.

Under Maine's challenged ballot law, an election official or any voter of a municipality may challenge the right of another person to vote in that municipality. A challenge of an in-person voter must be made to the election warden before that voter enters a voting booth. A challenge of an absentee voter must be made at the time that absentee ballot is being processed by the municipal clerk or election official, and before the ballot is placed in the ballot box or tabulating machine.

There are certain requirements that must be met for a challenge to be processed by the warden. If these requirements are met, the warden completes a challenge certificate, containing: the challenged voter's affirmation of the voter's qualifications and registration status; the signature and identifying information from the challenger, including the reason that the voter is being challenged; and the signature of the warden. The warden writes a unique number on the ballot as well as on the challenge certificate. This number is known only to the warden and the voter. The warden returns the ballot to the voter and the voter proceeds to vote in the usual manner. The warden seals the challenge certificate in an envelope, which is secured with the voted ballots and other materials at the end of Election Day. The warden also creates a public list containing the challenged voter's name, the name of the challenger and the reason for the challenge.

Challenged ballots are counted in the same manner as regular ballots on election night. The validity of a challenge is not reviewed unless a recount occurs, it is determined that there are a sufficient number of challenged ballots to affect the outcome of the election, and the recount remains disputed. In that event, the appropriate appeal authority promptly reviews any challenged ballots as well as ballots that were disputed during the recount, and makes a determination as to whether these ballots will be removed from the count.

Instructions for municipal election officials
The Secretary of State will provide municipal election officials with an informational sheet on the challenged ballot process that the election officials at each voting place can give to each challenged voter. The information sheet will detail how an individual can determine the status of a challenged vote. The Secretary of State will provide generic information on its web site that confirms that all challenged ballots have been counted, and provide an email address or other electronic system where individual voters can request additional information. If there is a disputed recount, and any challenged voters are deemed not to be eligible, the Secretary of State will give notice to the individual voters affected.

Voting Information Requirements
For many years, Maine has had laws requiring the posting of voting information at the polls. In recent years, the Secretary of State has worked with adult literacy experts to produce all election information in a format that is most easily understood by voters. In addition, the Secretary of State is continually providing new and improved information and instructions for voters and election officials.

The Secretary of State provides certain instructional materials to each municipality for posting in each voting place. These materials include:

Maine requires the posting of other election materials at the polls, including a certified copy of the voter registration list, a list of the persons appointed to be election clerks and information pertaining to the issues on the referendum ballot.

The Secretary of State will develop instructions on casting a challenged ballot and the requirements for mail-in registrants and first time voters described in section 303(b).