When news broke that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Trump administration had issued a request for voter registration data from all 50 states, including Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows wasted no time grabbing headlines, calling the move unprecedented and claiming “It’s an abuse of power and it contravenes what the founders set forth in the Constitution.”
Despite Bellows’ theatrical rebuke, including telling the DOJ to “go jump in the Gulf of Maine,” the actual request from the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is far from a rogue power grab. Federal oversight of voter registration processes is both constitutional and codified under long-standing federal law.
What Happened
In late July, the DOJ sent letters to state election offices requesting information on how states maintain their voter registration rolls, explicitly asking for lists of voters, the steps taken to remove ineligible names, and the local officials responsible for list maintenance. The request comes amid new claims by conservative groups (and some state parties) of duplicate or outdated voter records across several states. In Maine, the Republican Party claimed to have found more than 600 duplicative records, a claim Bellows’ office denied.
Nevertheless, Bellows responded to the DOJ with a full-throated constitutional objection, citing Article I and rejecting the request outright.
What the Constitution and Federal Law Say
Bellows is correct that Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution gives states the initial authority to determine the “Times, Places and Manner” of elections. But she conveniently omits the second half of that same clause: “…but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations…”
Congress has done just that, notably with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). These aren’t exactly recent Trumpian reforms, one law being 32 years old and the other being 23. Furthermore, the laws specifically direct the federal government to play a role in ensuring voter roll accuracy, election accessibility and integrity. HAVA created baseline requirements for state voter registration systems and assigned enforcement power and responsibility to the Department of Justice.
In other words, the DOJ is not conjuring new powers out of thin air—it’s acting under congressional authority. Their failure to do so could be seen as a dereliction of their ethical duty under federal law.
Enforcement Is Not “Unprecedented”
Secretary Bellows insists that the DOJ’s request is “unprecedented.” This is not entirely false, but is largely misleading. The DOJ has collected voter registration data, conducted compliance reviews, and pursued enforcement when states fail to meet federal requirements. For instance:
- In 2005, the DOJ sued Missouri over failure to maintain accurate voter rolls.
- In 2012, the DOJ sued Florida for improper purging of voter rolls.
- In 2018, the DOJ entered an agreement with Kentucky, remedying violations by the state due to its failure to remove registrants who have become ineligible.
- The NVRA has resulted in DOJ complaints at least 20 times since 2002.
What’s different now is the scope of the request—not its existence. Bellows herself admitted that “all 50 states” are expected to receive similar letters. If anything, this is a move toward standardized oversight—a natural progression given the national interest in electoral integrity. Thus, while it would be correct to point out the expanded scope of this information request, it is not an entirely new kind of DOJ action, and it does have legal precedent.
Bellows’ Shaky Constitutional Arguments
Bellows claims the DOJ’s request violates the “founders’ intent” and “voter privacy,” which is an overdramatic exaggeration at best. The federal government does not “get to know everything about you” just by asking for voter roll data, but that’s because they’re not trying to. In fact, under federal law and common practice, the data in this request is frequently shared with parties, researchers, and watchdogs. States routinely provide anonymized data or redact personally identifying information to not just candidates, the federal government, or political parties, but also to commercial data collectors.
More importantly, Article I does not give states absolute sovereignty over elections. It gives them a default role—subject to congressional oversight. Bellows’ interpretation would require ignoring both plain constitutional text and decades of precedent. It would imply that state laws are more powerful than federal laws, an argument with concerning, even secessionist, implications.
Political Theater or Policy Principle?
Bellows’ sudden concern for voter privacy rings hollow given her prior actions. Just last year, she ruled Donald Trump ineligible for the Republican primary ballot, citing the events of January 6, a decision that the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately overturned. Bellows has not been shy about wielding the power of her office in controversial, highly partisan ways.
She claims that these requests are unnecessary, as “Mainers should be very proud of our high voter participation – we have free, safe, and secure elections.” However, she has shown she does not, in reality, believe that. In her testimony in support of LD 1821 in 2022, she addressed recent threats against election workers, noting that “An attack on our election workers when they are running an election is an attack on our democracy.” Depending on the politics of an issue, Maine’s Secretary of State seems to flip between our entire political system being under attack and it being completely safe and secure.
What This Debate Should Be About
Ultimately, this issue is not a constitutional crisis; it’s a policy debate over the limits of federal oversight. Reasonable people can disagree over whether the Trump DOJ is overreaching, whether HAVA should be amended, or whether Congress has delegated too much power to the executive branch.
But make no mistake: the federal government can constitutionally oversee aspects of state-run elections, despite Secretary Bellows’ claims. It already does, and it has for decades. If Congress believes the DOJ has exceeded its mandate, it should rein it in. Until then, federal law, passed under Article I authority, remains the law of the land.
Conclusion
Secretary Bellows’ fiery rhetoric may play well in progressive political circles, especially as she runs for governor. But from a constitutional and statutory standpoint, her claims do not hold water.
The honest debate isn’t whether the DOJ can act on election integrity—it absolutely can. The debate is whether this specific request goes too far in practice, not principle. That’s a conversation worth having. But misleading the public about what the Constitution says doesn’t help anyone, least of all the voters of Maine.
