Overview
- Election officials, who met Tuesday and reconvened Wednesday, are rechecking petition signatures to decide if the referendum stays on Maine’s November ballot.
- Witnesses described petitions left without a circulator at a Christmas parade, a Topsham table left for 30 to 45 minutes, and a Saco polling place where people signed while a worker was away.
- Protect Girls Sports, the campaign behind the measure, acknowledged some mistakes but rejected claims of fraud, and its lawyer challenged photos offered as proof of unattended sheets.
- Challengers say the cushion of valid signatures has shrunk from about 3,300 above the threshold to roughly 300, after Secretary of State Shenna Bellows had earlier certified more than 71,000 as valid toward the 67,000 required.
- The proposal would require schools to sort teams and sex-separated facilities by sex at birth and could expose districts to lawsuits, a move that could clash with Maine’s gender-identity protections and echo similar ballot drives in other states.