Legal fight brews after Maine Secretary of State invalidates trans athlete ban signatures

A legal fight is brewing in Maine after the secretary of state, who is running for governor, invalidated signatures that would have placed a measure banning biological males from female sports and spaces on the November ballot.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, announced Tuesday that 12,542 signatures had been invalidated – enough to keep the citizen initiative off the ballot.

Supporters gathered nearly 80,000 signatures and Bellows’ office certified the results in March but now declared it 532 short of the necessary threshold.

“Unfortunately, some out-of-state circulators failed to meet certain legal requirements for petitions, resulting in this initiative failing to qualify for the ballot after legal review,” Bellows said in a statement.

Protect Girls Sports in Maine, the group behind the initiative, said it plans to challenge the decision in court.

“The Protect Girls Sports in Maine Committee disagrees with the Secretary of State’s decision declaring the Protect Girls Sports initiative ineligible for the November ballot,” the group posted on X. “The Committee is working to ensure full judicial review of the Secretary’s decision with the understanding that the courts, not the Secretary, should have the final word on this important matter.”

Bellows already faced criticism last month after her office drafted what the Maine Policy Institute described as “loaded and leading language” for the ballot question.

Instead of simply asking voters whether sports participation and access to intimate spaces should be limited based on biological sex at birth, the proposed wording referenced “civil rights and education laws” and warned about possible lawsuits against schools.

“Ballot questions are not supposed to persuade or obscure; they are supposed to inform voters of the issue in front of them,” the institute wrote. “The current draft language falls short of that standard by introducing unnecessary complexity, emphasizing certain effects over others, and failing to clearly state the proposal’s core purpose.

“That is especially concerning given that the Secretary of State’s office, led by Shenna Bellows, is expected to act as a neutral and nonpartisan arbiter in this process, providing objective language that allows voters to evaluate proposals on their merits. But that has clearly not happened here.”

Bellows previously drew national attention after attempting to remove President Donald Trump from Maine’s 2024 primary ballot, a decision later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Critics, including women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines and the Maine Republican Party, condemned Bellows’ latest action.

“So much for democracy,” Gaines wrote on X.

“Shenna Bellows has repeatedly used her position as secretary of state for her own political agenda, and she needs to be stopped,” the Maine GOP wrote, accusing her office of bowing to outside pressure.

“The signatures were originally certified by town clerks across Maine and the secretary of state staff. When outside groups questioned the validity, the office went backwards and ‘found’ their original certification to be faulty,” the party added.

Protect Girls Sports has 10 days from the decision to file an appeal.

National polling has found roughly 70% of Americans support limiting participation in women’s sports and access to intimate spaces based on biological sex.