One of the more durable political figures in Maine’s 20th century is Lewiston mayor and 11-term state Sen. Jean Charles Boucher. It is unlikely his longevity record for consecutive terms of service in the Maine Senate will ever be surpassed. Though not a household name today, this Quebec-born general contractor and father of eight served more than 25 years in the Maine Legislature and was twice elected mayor of Maine’s second-largest city.

One of his last addresses was among the more foretelling. It was on a bill he opposed to expand absentee voting. Speaking in l959 during the waning days of his last regular legislative session, Boucher successfully won the defeat of a bill that proposed abolishing the requirement of a doctor’s certificate before a voter could use physical disability as a grounds for absentee voting.

“I prophesy that if this bill becomes law you will have more absentee ballots than you have voters at the polls on election day,” Boucher predicted. Boucher also assailed this proposed liberalization of absentee voting as “the most dangerous bill that we have had before this session of the Legislature.” On a l2 to ll vote, the Senate then heeded the admonition of its longest serving member and rejected the proposal.

Despite Boucher’s protests, future Maine legislatures did eventually expand the basis for absentee voting. If recent trends continue we will soon see a time when, as Boucher predicted, over half of all ballots will be completed at a location estranged from their place of tabulation. As we embark this month on the final month of Maine’s biennial election odyssey it’s worth taking a look at how we arrived at this point in the journey.

The concept of any kind of pre-printed ballot, let alone an absentee one, is a novel idea to modern democracy. Voting in Maine when we first became a state was done on sheets of papers on which citizens would handwrite a chosen candidate’s name. (This is still done today in some of Maine’s smaller towns when choosing local officials at town meeting time.)

Private groups such as political parties, however, had the prerogative of supplying competing ballots. Voters could thereby make a choice not simply by selecting names on a standardized form but by choosing from an array of party sponsored “tickets,” sometimes flamboyantly decorated and often distinguishable by the color of their paper. Such a system allowed others observing the process including, for example, the voter’s employer and even those blatantly offering financial inducements, to clearly see who a voter was choosing by noting what color ballot he was depositing in the ballot box.

However, by l83l Maine became the first state to require that voting for major office be done on a white printed ballot. Voters depositing a ballot on colored paper were subject to a 50-dollar fine. Despite this safeguard, the system still risked abuses of the earlier regime because ballots still could be privately printed and then marked outside the polling stations.

This changed in l89l, when Maine adopted the secret ballot. First used in Australia in l858, it allowed only government printed ballots that originated from within the polling place. The system was also noted for its use of private voting compartments or booths. Gone was the time when pre-printed tickets issued by political parties could be brought in from outside. Gone too was the scandal of arm twisting and intimidation typifying the earlier system of conspicuous balloting.

All except those away on active military duty were still required to show up at the polls in person on election day until l92l. This was when those who certified they were unable to vote because they were out of town during voting time were permitted to vote absentee. A move by Representative Maher in the l92l session adopting this law, the first after the advent of female suffrage, to further expand eligibility to physical incapacity was defeated. This was despite his plea on behalf of “women who will not wish at certain times to go through the stress, inconvenience and publicity of the polling place” while pregnant.

By l937, the physical disabilities basis for absentee voting was enacted, however, but only those obtaining a doctor’s certificate of incapacity were eligible until a l96l amendment that removed the doctor’s certification requirement.

The most recent expansion of absentee ballot eligibility was enacted in 2000 and does away with any criteria for a voter requesting an absentee ballot. This change has resulted in a rapid upsurge in outside the polling place voting in Maine. In this year’s election up to 20-percent of voters are expected to mark their ballots outside the polling place. Significantly, however, this change has failed to bring about an increase in overall voter participation.

Widening the scope of absentee voting has come despite the warnings from an earlier time from such lawmakers as Sen. Boucher that these changes could open up the voting process to abuses that had typified the pre-Australian ballot era including the potential for undue influence. While those voting at the polls do so under a carefully supervised system that ensures privacy and autonomy those who vote elsewhere are not easily shielded from zealous partisans who are earnestly seeking to deliver ballots to the doorsteps of our most vulnerable citizens. Though hovering over or otherwise observing how an absentee voter is marking a ballot is illegal, the absentee process is not readily susceptible to the kind of barriers to these kinds of abuses that the decorum of a municipal polling place provides.

Providing a system of absentee voting does spring from laudable motives of enhanced voter accessibility and is one we should by no means abandon. How it is often implemented and can be abused, however, would distress Senator Boucher and should also be of much greater concern to us today.

Paul H. Mills is a Farmington attorney known for analyses and historical understanding of Maine’s political scene. He can be reached at [email protected].