AUGUSTA — Maine is denying the U.S. Department of Justice access to its voter registration records, state officials said Tuesday, rejecting an unprecedented request for sensitive voter data that the Trump administration has now delivered to all 50 states.

A letter late last week to Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and signed by Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General Michael Gates claims Maine had roughly 11,000 voters with duplicate registrations. It requested the state’s entire voter registration list dating back to November 2022 “to ensure that ineligible voters are being removed.”

The state has 14 days to respond to the letter dated July 24.

Bellows, who is also a Democratic candidate for governor, said in a press conference Tuesday the Trump administration is overstepping its bounds, empowering false narratives and “trying to change the topic away from the Epstein files.”

“Article 1 of the Constitution places the states — not President Trump, not the federal government — in charge of federal elections,” she said. “The DOJ doesn’t get to know everything about you just because they want to.”

Bellows’ office is coordinating with Maine’s Office of the Attorney General to draft a formal response, she said.

The Maine Republican Party has previously claimed widespread voter fraud across the state, but a subsequent investigation by Bellows’ office concluded this month and found those claims were baseless. Just because someone is registered to vote in two different towns doesn’t mean they intended to vote twice. Often, it simply means that they moved between elections.

A spokesman for the party did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday, but Senate Republican Leader Trey Stewart criticized Bellows for not complying.

“Secretary Bellows’ continued lack of transparency and refusal to do her job as Maine’s chief election official is unacceptable. It is well within the rights of the Department of Justice to request information from state election officials to ensure compliance with federal election standards,” Stewart said in a statement.

In addition to voter registration information, the DOJ also has requested the names of local election officials as well as information about noncitizens, felons, and deceased people’s alleged participation in Maine elections following President Donald Trump’s repeated false claims that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen from him.

“Please provide a description of the steps that Maine has taken, and when those steps were taken, to identify registered voters who are ineligible to vote as well as the procedures it used to remove those ineligible voters from the registration list,” the DOJ’s letter reads.

The DOJ has not publicly said why they are seeking voter records across the country. Asked about the request to Maine and other states, spokesperson Pierson Furnish replied in an email “No comment.”

The first Trump administration similarly made requests to view all Americans’ voter information in 2017. Then-Secretary of State Matt Dunlap said at the time he would release voters’ names, ages, residences and districts with the government, as allowed by Maine law.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine said the DOJ’s actions both now and then are part of “a clear pattern of intimidation.”

“This letter also fuels false narratives that sow distrust in our elections. Maine elections are safe, secure, and accessible, and that’s why Maine consistently has some of the highest voter turnout,” said Samuel Crankshaw, the group’s communications director. “Our government should focus on helping more people exercise their fundamental rights.”

Maine’s voter turnout is reliably high compared to other states and more Mainers voted in 2024 than in any election before, according to state voting data.

The Justice Department initially reached out to swing states like Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin, where local election clerks have reported federal agents requesting broad access to the states’ registration rolls and voting machines. Now, Bellows said, all 50 states have received similar letters. Maine, Minnesota and New Hampshire are the only states to have rejected the requests so far.

Bellows said she would share the state’s processes for removing ineligible voters from the rolls, but will not give personal information to the federal government. She also criticized Trump for “posting a lot on Truth Social about what the DOJ should or shouldn’t be doing to relitigate the lies of 2020 and to suggest federal interference in the future.”

“This is my answer to Trump’s Department of Justice: Go jump in the Gulf of Maine,” Bellows said. “Mainers should be proud of our high voter participation. We have free, safe and secure elections.”

This isn’t the first time Bellows has challenged Trump.

Last year, she attempted to remove Trump’s name from the Republican primary for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capital riot, which was fueled by Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about widespread election fraud. The Supreme Court ultimately overturned that decision.

Trump also penned an executive order in March threatening to pull federal funding from states with mail-in voting provisions and without citizenship requirements. Bellows said at the time that Trump was overstepping his authority and criticized the order’s demand that states share voters’ information with the federal government.