Maine sees higher voter turnout from 2016 election

BANGOR, Maine (WABI) - While we await official numbers, Maine has already exceeded the nearly 73% voter turnout from 2016.

Secretary of State Matt Dunlap says before election day the state had received more than half a million absentee ballots.

In-person voter turnout was incredibly strong as well.

Dunlap says they had very few issues and they are now asking everyone to just be patient.

Each town has two days to get their results to the state, and the state then has 18 days to turn in official results.

“When I voted yesterday in Old Town there was a line 50 deep at 7:30 in the morning so people were pretty energized around this election and despite all the heavy turnout it seemed like things went very smoothly," said Dunlap. "We didn’t have really an issues at all that we had to grapple with during election day.”

This was Dunlap’s last election as Maine’s Secretary of State.

He says he is pleased with how smoothly things went for this historic election.

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