The Republican State Leadership Committee, the top donor behind the Question 1 ballot referendum that would make it harder for Maine voters to cast absentee ballots, has raked in money this year from the utility and fossil fuel industries. 

Voter ID for Maine is the ballot committee backing Question 1 on Maine’s ballot. Roadside signs supporting Question 1 promise “Secure Elections” in Maine, but make no mention of the myriad changes that Question 1’s backers want to make to absentee voting in Maine. 

“It would make it hard for Mainers who rely on absentee voting to cast their ballot, including elderly people, people with disabilities, Mainers in rural communities, and Mainers who are out of state on Election Day,” according to Save Maine Absentee Voting, the ballot committee that’s urging Maine voters to vote no on Question 1.  

Question 1 is opposed by a broad coalition that includes ACLU Maine, Disability Rights Maine, the League of Women Voters of Maine, and the Natural Resources Council of Maine. 

If approved by voters, Question 1 will eliminate Mainers’ ability to request an absentee ballot over the phone and have family members pick up and drop off absentee ballots. Seniors over 65 and disabled voters will no longer be able to sign up to automatically receive absentee ballots in the mail each election. Absentee ballot drop boxes would be limited to one per municipality, and two days of absentee voting would be eliminated. 

Question 1 will “adversely impact people with disabilities, older Mainers, rural voters and voters without transportation,” according to public comments from Disability Rights Maine that are included in Maine’s official “Citizen’s Guide to the Referendum Election.” 

Mainers must currently provide a form of ID when they register to vote, and are not required to show their ID when voting in person or absentee. Question 1 would require voters to provide a Maine driver’s license or state-issued non-driver ID, passport, or military ID when they vote. While Mainers can register to vote using other forms of ID, including birth certificates, social security cards and student IDs, Question 1 would prohibit Mainers from using those other forms of ID when they vote.  

Maine Public Radio reports that absentee voting is “so popular that roughly 45% of Maine voters cast absentee ballots during the November 2024 elections.” 

The RSLC PAC contributed $500,000 of the $565,766 raised by Voter ID for Maine as of the end of September. Voter ID for Maine is due to file a pre-election campaign finance report with the state by October 24, which may reveal additional funding. 

In April, the RSLC PAC filed a quarterly report with the Maine Commission on Government Ethics and Election Practices. The RSLC PAC reported it had contributed $200,000 to Voter ID for Maine in January, followed by an additional $200,000 in February and $100,000 in March. The quarterly report filed in Maine names “General Treasury Transfer” as the only source of funding for the RSLC PAC during that time. 

A mid-year report that the RSLC PAC filed with the Federal Election Commission in August, however, more clearly names the “Republican State Leadership Committee” as the only contributor to the RSLC PAC during that time. The Republican State Leadership Committee is registered with the IRS as a tax-exempt 527 political organization based in Washington, D.C., and can raise unlimited money from corporations. 

The Energy and Policy Institute reviewed another mid-year report where the 527 arm of the RSLC reported its contributors and expenditures to the IRS, and found the RSLC received multiple six-figure contributions from utility and fossil fuel companies during the first six months of this year. The IRS report also confirmed that the 527 arm of the RSLC was the source of the contributions received by the RSLC PAC during the first quarter of this year. 

Avangrid contributed $100,000 to the RSLC in May. Avangrid is the parent company of Maine’s largest electric utility, Central Maine Power, and also owns utilities in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. 

Avangrid’s contribution came after campaign finance filings and local media first revealed the RSLC PAC as the top contributor to Voter ID for Maine in April. The utility company also contributed $310,000 to the RSLC from 2022 to 2024, and has contributed money to both Republican and Democratic 527 groups in recent years. 

Subsidiaries of Vistra Corp., which owns a methane gas-burning power plant in Maine, contributed $120,000 to the RSLC between January and March. Vistra contributed another $25,000 to the RSLC in May and made an in-kind contribution of event supplies valued at $950 on May 19, when the RSLC hosted a golf retreat in Missouri. 

Calpine, which also owns a methane gas plant in Maine, contributed $20,000 to the RLSC in March. NextEra, the owner of an oil-burning power plant in Maine, contributed $12,500 between January and March, and another $5,000 in May.

Avangrid, NextEra, Vistra, and Calpine have each spent millions of dollars to influence the outcomes of energy-related ballot questions in Maine during recent elections. 

Elsewhere, the RSLC is spending money to support Republican candidates in this year’s state legislative and gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia. Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest utility, contributed $100,000 to the RSLC in April. PSEG, the largest electric and gas utility in New Jersey, made two contributions in January totaling $65,000 to the RSLC, which last week launched a new ad campaign blaming Democrats for rising electricity bills in the state. 

The RSLC’s mid-year report to the IRS also included several contributions totaling $70,000 that the American Gas Association, the trade association for for-profit gas utilities, made on March 11. The Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for for-profit electric utilities, made two contributions totaling $20,000 on February 20.

Other investor-owned utility companies that contributed money this year to the RSLC included American Electric Power and Duke Energy.   

Billionaire Charles Koch’s petrochemical company, Koch Industries, contributed $235,000 to the RSLC via several contributions made in March and June, and the Koch group Americans for Prosperity made two contributions totaling $75,000 on January 22. 

The RLSC also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Chevron, Marathon Petroleum, and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. 

“Question 1 has come to Maine as part of a national attack on voting rights funded by out-of-state donors and organizations connected with the fossil fuel industry who are also funding disinformation campaigns against climate action and new sources of homegrown clean energy,” Pete Didisheim of the Natural Resources Council of Maine wrote in a blog recommending Mainers vote no on Question 1. 

The Virginia-based Lexington Fund, a dark money group tied to right-wing political money man Leonard Leo, is also a top donor to the RSLC. Leo owns a mansion in Maine. 

The Energy and Policy Institute reviewed campaign finance reports filed by Save Maine Absentee Voting and found no indication of utility or fossil fuel industry funding for the ballot committee opposing Question 1.