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Maine Approves Same-Day Voter Registration, After State GOP Suggested Initiative Was Pro-Gay

Ryan J. Reilly | November 9, 2011, 11:35AM

Despite a warning from Maine's Republican party that a gay rights group supported same day registration, state voters restored the option by a three-to-two margin Tuesday night.

"Maine has long prided itself on high voter participation, sparked by its long-standing practice of Same Day Registration (SDR)," Miles Rapoport, president of Demos and former Connecticut Secretary of State, said in a statement. "Now Maine's citizens have spoken loud and clear: They will not allow people who want to discourage real participation to diminish Maine's commitment to democracy."

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Topics: Maine, Voting, Voting Rights Act

Maine GOP Ad: The Gays Are Trying To Impose Same Day Voter Registration

Ryan J. Reilly | November 8, 2011, 10:00AM

Here's an interesting way to rally opposition to a ballot proposition that would allow for same-day voter registration: convince voters that its being pushed by gay activists and their pro-gay agenda.

That's what the Maine Republican Party did with ads they paid thousands of dollars to run in Maine newspapers.

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Topics: Maine, Voter suppression, Voting, Voting Rights Act, voter fraud

Paul LePage

Maine Gov: Let's Drug Test Welfare Recipients

David Taintor | November 7, 2011, 10:16AM

Welfare recipients should be treated like truck drivers, tea partying Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) says. Or, in other words, he wants to randomly drug test welfare recipients.

At a business chamber breakfast in Jay, Maine, LePage said, "I'm going to ask the Legislature to do what every truck driver in the United States of America has to do, take a random test," Maine Today reports. "I think if we're going to take our own limited resources, we ought to be able to test 'em on occasion."

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Topics: Drug Testing, Maine, Paul LePage, Welfare

Charles Webster

Maine GOP Chair: Students Should Pay Taxes If They Want To Vote

Jillian Rayfield | September 1, 2011, 6:30AM

Maine GOP Chairman Charles Webster

The Chairman of Maine's Republican party has doubled down on his crusade against the apparently widespread problem of voter fraud-committing college students, declaring this week that if students want to vote they should be paying taxes.

"I get tired of talking about this because the law is clear," Charles Webster said. "If I want to vote, I need to establish residency. I need to register my car and pay taxes in that community. You can't just become a student and vote wherever you want."

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Topics: Charles Webster, Maine, Voter Identification, voter fraud

voter fraud

Maine GOP Chair: Students Who Vote And Pay Out-Of-State Tuition Are Committing Voter Fraud

Ryan J. Reilly | July 27, 2011, 6:00AM

Maine GOP Chairman Charles Webster

Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster is claiming that college students who pay out-of-state tuition rates and vote in state are committing voter fraud.

At a press conference at the Maine State House, Webster gave the media a list of over 200 students -- their names redacted -- who paid out-of-state tuition rates but were registered to vote in the state.

Webster said he came up with the list because of opposition from voter rights groups to a law passed by the Republican-led legislature in June which banned voter registration on Election Day. A coalition of groups have launched a petition drive to overturn the law.

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Topics: Maine, Voter Identification, Voter suppression, Voting, voter fraud

Maine Patriots

Tea Partiers In Maine Kiss And Make Up (Sorta) After Strange Coup

Evan McMorris-Santoro | August 12, 2010, 8:40AM

Tea Party activists in Washington, D.C.

Last week we told you about the strange reports of a coup underway at the highest levels of one of Maine's largest tea party groups. A week after concerns over Maine Patriots founder Amy Hale's leadership allegedly spilled over into a heated confrontation in a parking lot where Hale was forced to give up control of the tea party group's website, things have calmed down quite a bit. But there's still an information blackout that makes it hard to figure out who's in charge up there.

Hale has responded to critics that said her head got too big to lead the grassroots Maine Patriots, but she still won't respond to my requests for more information about the police report she filed against those she said cornered her and intimidated her into coughing up the password for the Maine Patriots website.

"While I can not talk about the actual incident in the parking lot because of the police investigation," Hale wrote in a recent email to tea partiers in Maine, "I can say that the allegations made against me are false."

Those allegations are essentially that she displayed hubris, and have been leveled at her by a group of Maine tea partiers led by fellow activist Jeff Cucci prior to the "coup." Hale also said in the letter that it's time for the Maine tea party to move on. However, it's unclear who controls the group's website these days.

"I think that it is time that we get all this behind us. We need to be fighting the real enemy; the big government that is taking away our freedoms," Hale wrote. "I hope that you will stick with Maine Patriots as we turn our eyes toward the real enemy."

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Topics: Amy Hale, Maine, Maine Patriots, Maine Refounders, Tea Parties

Tea Parties

Is There A Coup In The Maine Tea Party?

Evan McMorris-Santoro | August 6, 2010, 10:52AM

Something weird is happening with the tea party in Maine. In the past few days, tea party websites in the Pine Tree State have offered glimpses of what some are calling a coup at the one of the state's largest tea party groups, The Maine Patriots.

On Tuesday night, Amy Hale -- one of the leaders of the Patriots group -- posted an odd message to the group's website, suggesting that she'd been forced to give up control of the site, according to media reports (the post has since been removed):

I was cornered in the parking lot by 10+ people and told that bad things would happen to me if I did not give them the password and hand over Maine Patriots. Therefore, I no longer have control of Maine Patriots. Amy

Hale reported the incident to the police. Last night, she refused to comment on the matter because, she told me, "the investigation is ongoing." Details beyond what she wrote that first night are sketchy.

Piecing together posts from tea party websites in the past couple of days, however, paints a picture of a state tea party in disarray -- and a look at tea party paranoia.