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COVID-19 Voting Update: The deadline to register to vote by mail has been extended from October 13, 2020 to October 19, 2020. Same-day voter registration will still be in place. Voters in Maine do not need an excuse to request an absentee ballot and vote by mail. They were able to do this prior to the pandemic.

[updated September 4, 2020]

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Check your registration status: https://www1.maine.gov/portal/government/edemocracy/voter_lookup.php

Register: https://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/voter-info/votreg.html

Track your ballot: https://apps.web.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/AbsenteeBallot/index.pl

Request absentee ballot: https://www.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/AbsenteeBallot/index.pl

Find your polling location: http://www.maine.gov/portal/government/edemocracy/voter_lookup.php

Find your sample ballot: http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/

Campus Vote Project: https://www.campusvoteproject.org/stateguides/Maine

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Hello Maine.

If you want to vote, first you have to get registered. You can check if you’re already registered by visiting the link in the description.

If you’re not registered, or you need to update your name or address, you can do that by going in person to your town or city hall, a DMV office, or a state or federal social service agency and asking for a voter registration card. If you want to vote in person there’s no deadline, you can register up to and even on election day, November 3rd. If you want to vote by mail though, you should register by October 13th to leave enough time for all the mail stuff to happen.

Once you’re registered, you have a few options for how you can vote. Any registered voter in Maine is allowed to vote absentee by mail for any reason. From August 3rd until October 31st, you can request your absentee ballot online using the link in the description.

There’s a printable version of the form there too. Then, you’ll get your ballot in the mail and all you have to do is fill it out at your own pace and send it back so that it arrives at your municipal clerk’s office by 8pm on election day. You can also vote early in person at your municipal clerk’s office from October 2nd to November 2nd.

There’s a link in the description that’ll tell you where you can vote early. If you really want that in-person voting experience on November 3rd, you can head to the polls between 6am and 8pm in most places. If you live in a town with less than 500 people, your voting location could open as late as 10am so when you go to the link below to find out where to go to vote, make sure you double check the time.

If this is your first time voting in Maine, you’ll need to bring a proof of address like a driver’s license, recent utility bill, or a bank statement with your name and current address on it. On the same website you used to look up your polling place, you can also find a sample ballot that tells you everything you’ll be able to vote for in your county. Maine’s a little different from other states because instead of voting for one candidate in state elections, you get to rank all the candidates from who you want to represent you most to least.

So it’s worth checking out who’s on there ahead of time—check out the description for some more info on how that works. You can even print out or screenshot your sample ballot and bring it to the polls with you so you don’t forget how you want to vote. One last thing: if you’re going to vote, open up your notes app or grab a piece of paper and make a plan.

Write down when and how you’re going to register, what time you’re going to vote, how you’re gonna get there, what proof of address you’re going to use if you need one, even who you’re going to bring to the polls with you. Having a plan is a great way to make sure that nothing unexpected stops you from being counted on November 3rd. All the links you need to check your registration and polling location are in the description.

Thanks for voting. How To Vote in Every State is produced by Complexly in partnership with The MediaWise Voter Project, which is led by The Poynter Institute and supported by Facebook.