1 min read

Spring primaries and fall election days are always a huge deal in Maine, perhaps now more than ever. Here are five historical photos that depict both, from the ’70s to the ’90s.

Firefighters Steve Giobbi and Dana Staples put the finishing touches on the Bramhall Station’s voting booths in a photo that ran in the Portland Press Herald on Nov. 7, 1978. (Doug Jones/Staff Photographer)
Yarmouth residents thronged Town Hall to vote on Nov. 2, 1982. According to a story that ran in the Evening Express on Election Day, voter turnout in Greater Portland was heavy. (Press Herald staff photograph)
On Nov. 6, 1990, 2 1/2-year-old Michael Simpson peeps around the leg of his father while he casts a vote at Longfellow School in Portland on Election Day. (Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer)
Portland resident John J. Smith picks up a ballot at the Waynflete School polling place during the May 1992 primaries. He was assisted by election clerks Ingrid Elofson and Helen Kilmartin. (John Ewing/Staff Photographer)
Frances Lee enters a voting place at the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Maine Street in Brunswick on Election Day 1992, which fell on Nov. 3. In Maine’s 1st District, Democrat Thomas Andrews was reelected, defeating Republican Linda Bean. In the state’s 2nd District, Republican Olympia Snowe was reelected, defeating Democrat Patrick K. McGowan and Green Party candidate Jonathan Carter. Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot in the presidential election. (Jack Milton/Staff Photographer)

Aimsel Ponti is a music writer and content producer for the Portland Press Herald. She has been obsessed with – and inspired by – music since she listened to Monkees records borrowed from the town...

Join the Conversation

Please your Press Herald account to participate in conversations below. If you do not have an account, you can subscribe here. Questions? Please see our FAQs.