For 38 years, Mainers enjoyed exercising their right to vote with an ease known only by Americans in seven other states. Maine law permitted citizens to register to vote the same day they cast ballots… until this year. 

Republicans in the Maine legislature passed LD 1376 this summer, and the state’s GOP governor happily signed the measure ending Election Day voter registration. The bill also bans registering and in-person “absentee” voting the two business days before an election. 

An effort is underway to repeal this suppressive voting measure at the ballot box this November (ironic much?). The group behind it, Protect Maine Votes, just unearthed some intriguing information on the civic participation history of some of the Republicans supporting LD 1376. 

At least nine GOP legislators who voted to ban same-day voter registration and reduce the number of days available for registering to vote and casting early ballots have themselves registered or voted within the window now forbidden by state law. Even Republican Governor Paul LePage registered to vote in Maine within the now-illegal period.

Among the list of legislators who voted to change Maine’s registration laws but have registered within the time that is now illegal are: Sens. Garrett Mason and Lois Snowe-Mello, and Reps. Bernard Ayotte, Eleanor Espling, Amy Volk, Patrick Flood, David Richardson, David Johnson and Aaron Libby.

Voting records for nine other members of the Legislature who voted to kill same-day registration show they also registered on or near Election Day, but those records could not be confirmed independently by Tuesday…

In addition to numerous members of the House and Senate whose registration would not have been allowed under current law, Governor Paul LePage, who signed the bill eliminating same-day registration, registered to vote in Waterville on the Monday before Election Day in 1982.

Maine Republicans supported and passed this bill for insubstantial reasons like “preserving the integrity of the voter” and supposed (and since disproved) student voter fraud. But many who worked to make voting more difficult clearly had no problem with using the existing system themselves.

Inventing reasons to eradicate elections practices that have worked for Mainers for almost 40 years is the sort of right-wing extremism Maine voters have rejected at the polls in two special elections over the summer. This November, Mainers will have the chance to deliver a direct rebuke of one of the most reprehensible laws the Republicans rammed through the legislature this year.