AUGUSTA (AP) — Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap says the Republican Party can pursue a single petition drive for a referendum on tax and welfare reform, but he’s reserving the right to split the initiatives into two questions on the ballot.
Dunlap informed the GOP in a letter on Tuesday.
The GOP wants to put tax reform and welfare reform in one question on the November 2016 ballot as part of the governor’s plan to bypass the Legislature and go straight to the people.
Dunlap said there’s precedent for splitting such a referendum into two separate questions when they involve different policy areas. He said it wouldn’t be fair to a voter who supports one proposal but not the other to have only one option of approving or rejecting both of them.
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