A line of people with last names P through Z wait to get their ballots Tuesday while, on the other side of the gym, people who have voted wait to scan their ballots at the South Portland Community Center. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

In a report issued a half-hour after polls closed Tuesday, the League of Women Voters of Maine issued a postelection report noting three instances of “very clear verbal” harassment of nonwhite voters in two separate voting locations.

In Trenton, a nonwhite voter was waiting in line to vote at the Town Office when a “man standing behind her started talking to the room about how people coming in to vote cannot even speak English, and that he would have no problem bringing in his driver’s license to prove he was a citizen,” according to league Communications Director Jen Lancaster.

There were other nonwhite voters standing in line, and the woman standing directly in front of the man who was talking became visibly upset but did not engage other voters.

In a second instance in Trenton, a number of people were talking aloud to a nonwhite voter waiting in line, and that voter became “visibly upset and was shaking” after the encounter. The league’s election observers were not able to confirm exactly what had been said to that voter.

In South Portland, where voters gathered at the Community Center, a nonwhite voter was harassed in the parking lot, according to the report, where multiple people asked her who she was going to vote for in an intimidating way. In addition to the league’s volunteer observers, the city clerk and an election warden were notified of the intimidation and intervened.

Had the clerk and warden not done so, Lancaster said the league’s volunteers would have stepped in.

In both Trenton and South Portland, election wardens and clerks ensured that the nonwhite voters who were harassed or intimidated still cast their ballots.

South Portland City Clerk Jessica Hughes, who also manages elections for the city, said she became aware of the intimidation in the parking lot when a voter came forward who had been questioned about their citizenship status by others. The election warden intervened, confirmed the person was eligible to vote and let them forward to vote, Hughes explained.

The warden then spoke with one particular person in the parking lot to tell him “that behavior will not be tolerated,” Hughes said, calling the incident “very isolated.”

She said the voter who came forward was confused by what was being asked of them, after being told in the parking lot that they would have to provide documentation in order to vote, and “we wanted to make sure the voter was OK and that they didn’t feel unsafe.”

According to the election warden, he saw a member of the South Portland GOP who is well known to city officials in the parking lot taking still pictures and videos of nonwhite voters and questioning their citizenship. The person, a woman, appeared to be targeting women wearing hijabs.

When he escorted her away from voters, she accused him of being on a “power trip” and warned him of an “influx of Africans dissuading our voting process.” He said there was no evidence of this at the polls, and no evidence of anyone voting illegally.

After the person who was intimidating voters left the Community Center, the election warden spoke to police officers who happened to be there after responding to a swatting call at the South Portland High School across the street earlier in the day, but did not file a police report because there was no evidence the woman had actually impeded voters from entering the polling place, which is not lawful.

Hughes called the incident “abnormal for us in South Portland” and she made a point to speak with the voter afterward to make sure there were no lingering fears or concerns.

In its report, the league also pointed to online reports of a troubling post referencing harassment on Reddit channel r/Maine that appears to have happened in Maine, including a report by a voter who claims to have been chased out of a polling place by a man asking how that voter obtained a second ballot. According to the post, the voter was “wearing a Chicago Cubs hat and he asked if I’m from Maine or if I’m an illegal sent from Chicago. I’m mixed, and I’m half Puerto Rican.”

In response to that post, on the channel noting that it is devoted to Maine-related news and discussion, a number of people shared that they’d had similar experiences in other polling places, but the league was not able to confirm those reports.

The League of Women Voters of Maine has organized nonpartisan volunteer election observers to provide real time reports from various polling places across the state since 2020, working with Maine for Modern Elections to monitor voter turnout post-pandemic and to ensure that election officials make reasonable accommodations for a safe and inclusive process for all voters. This year, more than 115 volunteers spread out across Maine’s 16 counties.

In most polling locations, league election observers saw “positive voting experiences, friendly poll workers, and democracy in action at the local level,” according to Executive Director Anna Keller. “This reinforces that voters should have full confidence in the electoral process and that their vote is counted.”

This is the first year, Lancaster said, that the league has received multiple reports of voter harassment, specifically against nonwhite voters, noting “there may be a trend out there.”

Based on this development, the League’s report raises a concern that “these incidents stem from the recent spread of disinformation on noncitizen and immigrant voting.”

“It’s so unlike Maine,” Lancaster said, “but hopefully it’s not an ongoing trend. Maybe it’s a one-time thing.”

Aside from these incidents of intimidation, League volunteers found no major disruptions to the election process in Maine. Observers did note there was a two-hour wait in the voter registration line at the Portland Exposition Building in the evening, but at most polling places the wait to vote was much faster.

In 44 of the locations being observed, volunteers counted waits of no more than 10 minutes. In 18 locations, voters had to wait more than 45 minutes to cast their ballots due to the high voter turnout.

Although not unusual for police officers to be present at voting locations, League volunteers noticed an “increase in uniformed law enforcement officers being present at polling places this year, which became more prevalent in Portland following swatting incidents” that were called in to multiple schools across the state midmorning.

To read the full LWVME report, including an interactive map showing where volunteers were dispatched, go to: storymaps.com/stories/637a868879b3486e8d0962165c802b60