[September 09, 2016]

Absentee Ballots for General Election Available by Request via Online Service

The Online Absentee Ballot Request Service is available for the Nov. 8, 2016 General Election, Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap reminded voters today.

Any registered Maine voter may choose to vote absentee, either via mail or in person at their town hall prior to Election Day. Voters do not need to provide a reason to vote absentee.

Voters can request an absentee ballot by completing and submitting their request form online at http://www.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/AbsenteeBallot/index.pl . The form can also be printed out and mailed or hand-delivered to their municipal clerk. The online service was created in partnership with the Secretary of State's Office and InforME.

The November 2016 ballot will include five citizens' initiative questions and one bond issue, in addition to candidates for the offices of U.S. President/Vice President, Maine's Representatives to Congress, members of the Maine Legislature and certain county positions. The full proposed legislation of the referendum questions, which are listed below, is available on the Elections Division website athttp://maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/upcoming/index.html.

• Question 1: An Act to Legalize Marijuana
• Question 2: An Act To Establish The Fund to Advance Public Kindergarten to Grade 12 Education
• Question 3: An Act To Require Background Checks for Gun Sales
• Question 4: An Act To Raise the Minimum Wage
• Question 5: An Act To Establish Ranked-choice Voting
• Question 6: An Act To Authorize a General Fund Bond Issue to Improve Highways, Bridges and Multimodal Facilities

Voters must submit absentee ballot requests at least three days prior to the Nov. 8 General Election. Ballots will be made available to civilian voters beginning 30 days before the election. (Ballots for uniformed service and overseas voters will be available at least 45 days before the election.) The online service provides an email notification with a confirmation number. When the request is processed and accepted by the municipal clerk, the voter will be sent an additional notification and the ballot will arrive by mail. All Maine municipalities are required to accept electronic requests for absentee ballots.

If you have questions about the absentee voting process, visit http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/voter-info/index.html or call the Division of Elections at 624-7650.

About Maine.gov

Maine.gov (http://www.Maine.gov) is the official Web portal of the State of Maine. Maine.gov is a service of InforME, a collaborative effort between the state of Maine and Maine Information Network, LLC, part of the NIC (News - Alert) (EGOV) family of companies.

About NIC

Founded in 1992, NIC (EGOV) is the nation's leading provider of innovative digital government solutions and secure payment processing, which help make government more accessible to everyone through technology. The family of NIC companies provides digital government solutions for more than 4,500 federal, state, and local agencies in the United States. Forbes has named NIC as one of the "100 Best Small Companies in America" six times and the company has been included four times on the Barron's 400 Index. Additional information is available at http://www.egov.com.

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