AUGUSTA — The Elections Division of the Department of the Secretary of State has received petitions from the citizens’ initiative effort “An Act To Establish Universal Home Care for Seniors and Persons with Disabilities.” The proponents of this legislation submitted 7,000 petitions with 67,000 signatures to the Elections Division on Friday, Jan. 26, 2018.

Elections Division staff will now have until Feb. 26 to certify the signatures on these petitions, to confirm whether enough valid signatures have been submitted to qualify the question for the November 6 ballot. The number of valid signatures of registered Maine voters currently required is 61,123 (10% of the total votes cast for Governor at the November 4, 2014 General Election).

Petitions for this effort were issued on Oct. 24, 2017. According to the proposed bill summary, this legislation seeks to provide in-home and community support services for all people with disabilities living in Maine who require assistance with an activity of daily living and people 65 years of age or older who are living in Maine and who require assistance with an activity of daily living, without regard to income, to be funded by a new tax of 3.8% on income and wages that exceed the maximum wages subject to social security employment taxes.

Visit http://maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/citizens/index.html to view the proposed legislation in its entirety.

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