Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, the top Democrat official who booted President Donald Trump from the 2024 primary ballots, has claimed that voter ID laws are “rooted in white supremacy.”
Bellows made the claim while giving testimony to the legislature in April 2021.
She was expressing her opposition to proposed state laws that would require voters to show photo identification to cast a ballot.
“Passing these bills would mean putting into statute discriminatory practices rooted in white supremacy,” Bellows said during her testimony.
“Today, voter ID laws are the new means of voter suppression.”
“These bills would not only negatively impact people of color but also the elderly, transient, people with disabilities, students, and low-income communities,” she added.
“In order to make our democracy as representative as possible, we cannot enact practices that would shut out certain members of society.”
Bellows’ opposition to the proposed laws, which did not pass, came as Democrats in several states opposed largely Republican-led efforts to pass laws aimed at ensuring election integrity.
GOP lawmakers pushed to secure Americans voting processes in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
Most notably, several high-profile Democrats, including President Joe Biden, dubbed a similar bill in Georgia “Jim Crow 2.0.”
Bellows previously represented Maine’s 14th District in the state Senate for roughly four years.
She has served as the state’s SOS since 2021.
It also surfaced last week that Bellows previously referred to the Electoral College as a “relic of white supremacy.”
Shortly after taking office, Bellows penned an op-ed for a progressive platform known as the Democracy Docket.
In her piece titled “Voting Rights for Our Neighbors Matter As Much as Our Own,” she touted her efforts to make “voting more accessible.”
The career Democrat said she sought the position of secretary of state because she “was truly frightened for our democracy” after the 2020 presidential election.
She blasted the Electoral College in her column, calling it “the relic of white supremacy” that prevents voters from being represented fairly.
In her ruling to disqualify Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot, Bellows cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that bars people who have “engaged in insurrection” from running for elected office without two-thirds congressional approval.
However, she failed to note that Trump has never been convicted of engaging in an “insurrection” or any other crimes.
The clause was originally meant to bar former Confederate soldiers and officers from holding positions in the U.S. government or military.
It was also referenced by Colorado’s highest court in a 4-3 ruling last month to bar Trump from that state’s primary ballot.
That decision has been challenged by the Colorado GOP, however, setting up a battle before the U.S. Supreme Court.
