PORTLAND, Maine – A Maine initiative supposed to restrict transgender college students’ means to take part in sports has been faraway from the poll due to invalid signatures, the secretary of state dominated Tuesday.
The proposal from mother and father’ group Protect Girls Sports in Maine was slated to go earlier than voters in November. It would have requested voters in the event that they wished to require public faculties to limit entry to bogs and sports based mostly on the gender denoted on a toddler’s start certificates.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who’s working for governor as a Democrat, stated Tuesday her employees discovered that greater than 12,000 signatures on the petition for the referendum have been invalid. That leaves the petition drive a couple of hundred in need of the 67,682 required for the initiative to make the poll, Bellows stated.
Bellows’ determination is a setback for the nationwide motion to restrict or ban transgender college students in sports. Maine emerged as a battleground for the problem final yr following a public disagreement between Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who’s in her remaining yr of workplace attributable to time period limits, and President Donald Trump.
“We take the integrity of the petitions just as seriously as we take the security of voting. It’s really important that anyone seeking to place a initiative on the ballot follow the law,” Bellows stated.
The petitioners have 10 days to enchantment Bellows’ determination. Representatives for Protect Girls Sports in Maine didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Tuesday, however indicated final week that they’d maintain pushing for the initiative to look on the poll. The group will even have the flexibility to attempt to get the initiative on a future poll, Bellows stated.
The secretary of state’s workplace launched a really helpful determination in regards to the initiative final week that stated the petition “does not meet the constitution threshold” of legitimate signatures. Leyland Streiff, principal officer of Protect Girls Sports in Maine, stated in a press release that the group was “continuing our defense of the Protect Girls Sports ballot measure.”
At least 19 states have legal guidelines banning transgender women and girls from utilizing women’ and girls’s bogs at public faculty, and in some circumstances, different authorities amenities, personal faculties or public locations. Enforcement of one of many legal guidelines – in Montana – has been placed on maintain by a courtroom.
At least 30 states have legal guidelines or different statewide insurance policies that search to maintain transgender women and girls from competing in women and girls’s sports. Courts have blocked enforcement of a few of the legal guidelines.
None of the legal guidelines on bogs or sports restrictions took place by way of poll measures. Two different Democratic-controlled states – Colorado and Washington – have sports-related legal guidelines on the poll for November.
The restrictions on each fronts have been adopted previously 5 years, and have been championed by Trump. Since his return to workplace final yr, he has terminated agreements with faculty districts to guard transgender college students and signed an executive order to restrict sports participation by transgender athletes.
Opponents of the Maine poll initiative stated Tuesday they agreed with Bellows’ determination. The petitioners “failed to follow the rules,” stated David Farmer, marketing campaign supervisor for the Campaign for Free and Fair Schools, which opposed the query.
___
Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials will not be revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.