# A Legal Group Says Maine's Voter Rolls Hold 3,181 Potentially Dead Voters and 693 Duplicate Registrations, and Files a Federal Complaint Days Before the Election

The Public Interest Legal Foundation says Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has not made a reasonable effort to clean the list. Her office had not commented when Fox published.

- Section: [Politics](https://rightnewsrightnow.com/politics/)
- Published: 2026-10-31
- By: RightNewsRightNow Staff
- Canonical page: https://rightnewsrightnow.com/articles/pilf-complaint-maine-voter-rolls-3181-potentially-dead-693-duplicates-bellows-collins-jackson-fox-news/

A conservative legal group says it found fresh problems on Maine's voter list, days before voters decide a closely watched Senate race, Fox News Digital reports.

The complaint. The Public Interest Legal Foundation filed the complaint with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Tuesday. It identifies 3,181 potentially dead voters and 693 duplicate registrations, and argues election officials have not made a "reasonable effort" to remove ineligible people from the official list. It asks Maine to review the group's analysis, remove ineligible voters immediately and put a plan in place to comply with the Help America Vote Act now and in the future. The group warns it "may have no other recourse" but to appeal through that law's complaint process if nothing is done.

The comparison. The foundation compared its new findings with its 2025 investigation, which flagged 18,453 potentially dead voters and 1,498 duplicate or triplicate records. It says the state fixed many of those records but some errors remain and "new problems have arisen." Its method searched for records sharing an address, first and last name and birth year, and also caught typos, punctuation errors, common nicknames and birth-year discrepancies.

The argument. Adams, who spoke to Fox for the group, said the state should have found the problems itself: "Why does it take a third-party group like the Public Interest Legal Foundation to find these duplicates?" He said his concern is that someone could use a dead person's registration to vote illegally, and he accused Bellows of fighting the group instead of keeping the list accurate. The group sued Maine about six years ago over access to the rolls and won a federal appeals court ruling in 2024 requiring the state to make the records public.

The stakes. Mainers vote Tuesday in a tight Senate race between Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democrat Troy Jackson. Fox says it asked Bellows's office for comment.

Note for readers: "potentially dead" and "duplicate" are the group's matches against public records, not confirmed ineligible voters, and Maine officials have not yet responded in Fox's report. The accusations about Bellows are the group's own.

## Source

Original reporting: [Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/troubling-discovery-state-voter-rolls-sparks-action-days-before-midterms-should-have-been-fixed)