If this were about any time before 1960 in our state’s history our election campaign would be almost over!
For up until then, Maine elections had been held the second Monday in September. With a year of campaigning already behind us many might wish that this were still the case. The fact that it isn’t already over is an occasion to pay tribute to a nearly forgotten Maine legacy, see how it came into being, how it was forsaken and why we might celebrate some of its advantages.
In our years before statehood, while still a part of Massachusetts, state elections were held the first Monday in April, a time decreed by the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. March and April had long been popular times because these had traditionally been the opening months of the calendar. (Until the mid-1700s the new year began in March.)
Though our first state elections in 1820 retained the April date, those from 1821 onward were set for the second Monday in September, a date that would endure for 137 years.
Though by 1840, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana were holding their state elections in October, and Maine and Vermont were conducting them in September, most of the states had shifted to November to coincide with the date of presidential voting. Maine stood out but it did not stand alone. Events in the “hard cider” campaign year of 1840, the first nationally to showcase festival like campaign “rallies” would help ensure that our state would remain a hold-out for early voting.
For this was the year when Maine elected the Whig nominee as governor, former Gov. Edward Kent. Whigs nationally exploited news of the outcome to muster support for their November presidential ticket headed up by Tippecanoe War hero Gen. William Harrison.
“Oh, have you heard how Old Maine went?
She went hell bent for Governor Kent.
And Tippecanoe and Tyler, too”
It was from this 1840 election we owe our reputation for political prophecy and the adage, “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.”
In other states, the shift to November elections was accelerated by Congressional mandates that federal election occur the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This trend continued until by 1913 Louisiana was the only state other than Maine in which its state elections occurred on a date other than one in November. (Louisiana’s had been in April but finally switched to a November with December run-off system in 1975.)
Eventually, the “As Maine Goes” tradition began to collide with another Maine tradition, that of frugality. The cost of opening the polls for two elections within two months while nearly all other states had merged theirs into one was a burden to local municipalities, who had to foot the bill for conducting them.
Thus, from 1874 onward various proposals were discussed by the legislature to move our election date to November. By 1909, even the state’s chief executive took up the cause, Gov. Bert Fernald’s inaugural address proclaiming “It is a waste of time and money to hold two elections when one can serve as well.”
The Depression added further stimulus to the money saving arguments for change. On this basis a 1933 survey of Maine town and city government leaders demonstrated overwhelming support for the change.
Many proposals to change the election date all met with defeat, however, largely due to Republican opposition. This was because as a predominantly Republican state the early election outcomes tended to give a publicity advantage to its presidential ticket. The party that came out on top in our September state voting would be given a boost in morale for the November voting.
Outcome of the September 1956 state elections was a turning point, however. In it, Maine voters re-elected its Democratic incumbent Gov. Edmund Muskie, in a landslide vote and sent a Democrat, Frank Coffin of Lewiston to Congress for the first time since 1934. Thus, in 1956, the pre-presidential election publicity, for one of the first times, favored the Democrats rather than the Republicans.
The GOP, which nevertheless remained in control of the state legislature, largely abandoned its earlier opposition to the date change and voted to put the issue out to the voters in a September 1957 referendum amending the state constitution. In a light, off-year voter turn-out, 64-percent voted to ratify the change, which took effect for the first time in 1960. (The last September candidate election was thus just sixty years ago, 1958.)
Though both the reasoning and momentum for change was by the late 1950s difficult to resist, the older system still has something to commend itself. For one thing we would be able to compete with New Hampshire. Whose presidential primary has since the 1950’s given it “first in the nation” bragging rights in the pre-convention nominating process.
A September date would provide a more adequate breathing space from our election date to the time when a new government assumes power, particularly since the change in 1980 that moved up the convening of our legislature from January to early December. This is now an interregnum that leaves less than four weeks for crucial preparation time to the ever increasing numbers of novice legislators converging on Augusta in this, the era of term limits.
Such an interlude would also be a welcome respite from the fatigue that most voters seem to experience in the weeks now leading up to our November elections. It was also one foretold as far back as 1915 by Representative Seth Snow, a Mars Hill merchant who then successfully prevailed upon his colleagues in the Maine legislature to defeat a measure that would have given us a November state election back then.
“I do not see why we should want to get two months more of that kind of thing. We have all the time necessary, and if we had to go on the way we went last fall with two more months of campaign speeches or speech-making in the state of Maine, half of the people would not know any more how to vote intelligently than they did, and the other half would be nearly insane.”
Today, over a century after Snow’s lament, some may find his arguments resonate in a way he could not have then imagined.
Paul H. Mills, is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and historical understanding. He can be reached by e-mail: pmills@myfairpoint.net.
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