WASHINGTON — Maine Senate hopeful Troy Jackson came out against the use of voter ID to combat electoral fraud during his first debate against Sen. Susan Collins, in which he frequently leaned on notes in a hulking binder.
The former logger argued that noncitizens are already prohibited from casting ballots in elections and insinuated that the election integrity measure is unnecessary.
“No, as a working logger, many times I went to the polls without my ID,” he said during the debate.
Collins (R-Maine) countered that “Only Americans should vote in American elections. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
“It’s already the law,” Jackson shot back.
President Trump had made passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act a top legislative priority this year, which would require proof of citizenship to vote, but the measure has stalled in the Senate.
Democrats contended that such a requirement would be too burdensome on ordinary voters.
The question during Tuesday’s debate, however, centered around a much simpler requirement of just an ID. A Pew Research survey last year found that 83% of respondents backed voter ID.
There have been some instances of ineligible individuals casting votes in US elections. Over the summer, New Jersey faced controversy after Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) revealed that some 400 non-citizens cast ballots illegally since 2023 after they were wrongly added to the voter rolls.
Tuesday marked the first of four debates between Collins and Jackson.
During the verbal bout, the former Maine state Senate president brought a thick white binder full of notes that he referenced frequently during the debate.
Jackson was often seen glancing at those notes during key moments, such as his opening statement and issues that were likely anticipated, including Collins’ past support for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. At times, he also ruffled through pages in his binder.
The two candidates are supposedly expected to go without notes during Thursday’s debate, The Post has been told.
In contrast, Collins brought what appeared to be a small folder with some notes and only seemed to reference them a couple of times, including during the question she prepared for Jackson in which she ripped him for struggling to get bills through the state legislature.
“In your more than 20 years in the legislature, more than one third of your bills were unanimously rejected in committee,” she said. “You couldn’t even find one Democrat on the committee to support a third of your bills.”
“If you can’t find one person in your own party to vote for your bills when you were the Senate president in Maine, how do you think you’re going to get things done in a closely divided Senate as the most junior senator?”
Jackson, meanwhile, used the one question he was given to blast Collins over her 2018 vote to confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
“What will it take for you to admit you are ever wrong?” he asked her after sounding off about her vote for Kavanaugh.
