Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruled on Tuesday that Protect Girls’ Sports in Maine, an anti-transgender campaign, submitted invalid and forged signatures in its bid for a November ballot measure that sought to ban trans students from school sports and restrooms. As a result, the measure will not appear on the voting ballot this November, Erin in the Morning reported.
The campaign, bankrolled by out-of-state billionaire Richard Uihlein, submitted 79,692 signatures — well over the 67,682 required to qualify. However, a court review of the campaign’s petitions in May invalidated 12,542 of the signatures, leaving the campaign 532 signatures short of the required number.
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Some of the signatures were thrown out because the collectors didn’t witness the signing (as required by state law). Others were invalidated because the signatures did not match the voters’ signatures on voter registries, because the signatories signed more than once, because the signers weren’t registered voters, or because the signatures were forgeries. Collectors were paid $3 to $4 per signature.
Though Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows approved the signed petitions as valid in March, following a court evidentiary review, she ruled on Tuesday that the petitions fell short of the signatures required to get the measure on the November ballot.
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The ballot measure would’ve defined a student’s sex as “a biological status as male or female recorded at birth on the person’s original birth certificate,” effectively ending any legal recognition of trans students, not just in the cases of restrooms and sports. It also would’ve carved trans students out of legal protections enshrined in the Maine Human Rights Act (a statewide anti-discrimination law), and would’ve allowed cisgender students to sue any school that allowed trans students to use sex-segregated school spaces alongside them.
In a statement celebrating Bellows’ ruling, David Farmer, campaign manager for the Campaign for Free and Fair Schools coalition, said, “The paid, out-of-state signature gatherers and the billionaire who paid to try to put this question on the ballot failed to follow the rules. We believe that the appeals process and the reviews by the Secretary of State are working as the law intends. They are protecting the integrity of our elections.”
Even if voters had approved the measure in November, it would likely have faced legal challenges, since it would’ve resulted in trans students and their families facing harassment and discrimination.
Transgender journalist Erin Reed noted that Uihlein is a major funder of the American Principles Project, a right-wing conservative organization that has spent tens of millions on anti-trans election ads. Reed also noted that an independent analysis published by Atmos and HEATED found that 80% of the nation’s 45 major anti-trans organizations have gotten funding from billionaires or fossil fuel companies.
Reed also noted that anti-trans ballot measures will go in front of voters in both Washington and Colorado.
“Both efforts are also funded by conservative megadonors,” she wrote, “and both are part of the same strategy that produced the Maine initiative: Use ballot initiatives to roll back trans rights in states whose elected legislatures have refused to do so.”
Uihlein and Protect Girls Sports in Maine’s efforts came after Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) repeatedly refused to comply with the president’s extortive attempts to withhold federal education funding in retaliation for the state’s trans-inclusive school policies.
The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Maine, challenging the state’s trans-inclusive interpretation of Title IX. That legal battle is currently ongoing.
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