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A conservative legal group filed an election complaint in Maine Tuesday, alleging that more than 3,000 potentially dead people and hundreds of duplicate registrations were discovered on the state’s voter rolls just days before the pivotal midterm elections.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) identified 3,181 potentially dead voters and 693 duplicate registrations, urging the state to take action as Mainers prepare to cast their ballots Tuesday.
“Now we know why they were hiding them because there were problems on them,” Adams told Digital. “They have dead people, they have lots of duplicates and they have general problems. It’s something that should have been fixed a long time ago.”
The complaint, which was filed with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, argues election officials have not made a “reasonable effort” to remove ineligible voters from the official list.
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A Maine resident casts their ballot at a polling station inside the Augusta Civic Center on June 9, 2026 in Augusta, Maine. Maine voters will decide in primaries for U.S. Senate and U.S. House. (CJ Gunther/Getty Images)
Adams said the state should have discovered the information, not his group.
“Why does it take a third-party group like the Public Interest Legal Foundation to find these duplicates?” Adams said.
The group is asking the state to take “additional corrective action,” warning it “may have no other recourse” but to appeal through the complaint process under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), a 2002 election reform law, if nothing is done.
The group compared those findings with its previous investigation in 2025, which found 18,453 potentially dead voters and 1,498 duplicate or triplicate registration records in Maine. The state addressed many of the records identified that year, but PILF said some errors remain while “new problems have arisen.”
Several searches were used in the analysis to identify records that shared the same address, first and last names and birth year, as well as typos, punctuation errors, common nicknames and birth-year discrepancies.
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Maine Secretary of State and candidate for Governor Shenna Bellows speaks during a May Day rally organized by local unions, on May 1, 2026 outside City Hall in Portland, Maine. (Graeme Sloan/Getty Images)
The complaint requests that Maine review the group’s analysis, immediately remove ineligible voters and implement a plan to ensure the state complies with HAVA “now and in the future.”
“I hope she gets the job done and removes all these duplicates,” Adams said.
Adams said his group has been embroiled in an ongoing legal battle and Bellows has a history of trying to “criminalize” PILF for revealing what they found. PILF sued Maine roughly six years ago over access to the state’s voter rolls and won a federal appeals court case in 2024 that required the state to make the records public.
“There’s a history here of Secretary Bellows not wanting the public to know what kind of job she’s doing,” Adams said.
Adams accused Bellows of focusing on “defending sort of blue theories” rather than keeping Maine’s voter lists accurate and up to date.
“Unfortunately, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is not getting the job done,” he said.
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Campaign signs for Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson are seen alongside a road in Bangor, Maine, on Oct. 14, 2026. (Paul Steinhauser/)
One of Adams’ biggest concerns is that someone could use a dead person’s registration to illegally vote. He said progressive state officials are reluctant to immediately remove dead voters out of fear they could mistakenly remove eligible voters, potentially leaving the door open for fraud.
“The problem is that sometimes people vote for the dead people,” he said.
But Adams said he believes Maine has been trying to keep its problems out of the public eye for a long time.
“Maine has a longstanding problem trying to hide public information about whether or not they’re doing a good job,” he said.
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Digital reached out to Bellows’ office for comment.
The legal filing comes just days before Mainers vote in a critical and tight U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Susan Collins and her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson. The winner could determine the balance of power in the Senate.
