The illegal voting claims Maine Republicans want investigated

Maine's secretary of state is butting heads with a conservative website that published a story saying at least six noncitizens may have illegally voted in elections here.

Attorney General Aaron Frey and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows sent a letter last week to Steve Robinson, editor of the news arm of the conservative Maine Policy Institute, requesting that he provide information on those people. The Maine Wire, through an attorney, responded by saying it will not turn over records to protect the identity of its source.

These claims are difficult to verify because the story relies on leaked state health records that even Bellows' office is barred from accessing by law. National studies examining noncitizen voting have found it to be extremely rare. Yet this looks likely to fuel existing conservative distrust in the election system, and Maine Republicans are urging the state to investigate.

Here are three things to know about what was released and its limitations.

It's unclear how these people registered, and they may have severe disabilities.

The Maine Wire's Oct. 10 story said it received MaineCare records from an anonymous source. After it was cross-referenced with voter registration records, the site said it identified six noncitizens registered to vote in Maine. Five of them had voted in elections since 2016.

It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. No states allow them to vote in their elections, although some cities allow them to vote in their local elections.

But it remains unclear here whether these people registered to vote themselves, had other people register them or had ballots illegally cast in their names. The story said all six were registered Democrats listed in a MaineCare portal as either a "Legal Alien" or another category that could include undocumented people.

The records also indicated they have "severe" intellectual disabilities and cognitive impairment and require interpreters. That piqued the interest of Walter Olson, a senior fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute, who said that detail reminded him of a 1980s scandal in Chicago in which those overseeing patients in residential settings led them to vote for Democrats.

Yet Olson emphasized that it's not at all certain that something like that happened in Maine. He also warned that English language barriers could lead to "data entry errors" in the MaineCare portal.

"Even if all of the allegations are correct, it's very hard to extend them to any [theories] about what other noncitizens in Maine may be doing," Olson said.

This health data is held by the state, but not everyone can access it.

Bellows and Frey, both Democrats, sent a letter to Robinson the day after the story was published to request identifying information for the six individuals, the copies of the MaineCare records and any other documentation "relevant" to the allegations in the story.

Frey and Bellows noted a person who votes knowing they are ineligible to do so commits a Class C felony in Maine that is punishable by up to five years in prison, and knowingly providing false information to an election official regarding voter qualifications is a Class D misdemeanor.

Patrick Strawbridge, a lawyer for the Maine Wire, told Bellows and Frey in a Monday letter the outlet will not comply with the request, in part because Bellows and Frey already have the ability to get the information in question because they could cross-reference Department of Health and Human Services records with voter registration information.

But Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Lindsay Hammes said it is bound by state and federal law to "protect the confidentiality of records containing personally identifying medical information that we obtain in relation to the provision of those services."

Bellows spokesperson Emily Cook added it appeared the Maine Wire's possession of the health records is "unlawful, just as it would be likely unlawful for Secretary Bellows to have them."

"Withholding evidence, while making vague accusations, only serves to negatively impact election integrity and public confidence," Cook wrote in an email.

Noncitizen voting looks to be extremely rare. Republicans are hammering the issue.

Alleged voting by noncitizens has been a favorite talking point among Republicans and former President Donald Trump, but studies have not found any credible evidence that it happens on a broad scale. Olson has estimated that the percentage of noncitizens who vote is close to zero .

Trump's false claims that President Joe Biden stole their election have led to deep Republican skepticism about the election system. After the 2022 election, roughly 4 in 10 of the party's members in Maine said they were not confident that their vote was accurately counted, according to a University of New Hampshire poll .

The Maine Wire led its story with an illustration of Bellows, Gov. Janet Mills and Trump, who has made the specter of noncitizen voting central to Republican messaging. Conservative states have advanced laws and ballot measures on the topic.

Elected Republicans have pressed for more scrutiny while not alleging that fraud happened here. House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, called upon Bellows and Frey to conduct "a full and capacious investigation prior to November's general election."

Cook added that the National Voter Registration Act bans states from taking broad actions to cull the voter registration list in the 90 days before the Nov. 5 election. The administration of President Joe Biden is now suing Virginia for canceling registrations of suspected noncitizens in ways that could affect citizens.