State News Update from Representative Abigail Griffin

State of Maine Online Absentee Ballot Request Service

Maine citizens who are registered to vote may use this free service to request an absentee ballot for the:

November 8, 2022 General Election

Ballots must be received no later than 8:00 p.m. EDT on Election Day.

For more information, please visit our Upcoming Elections page.

Maine Voters (currently living in Maine or the U.S.)

Use this option if you are a registered Maine voter who:

• currently lives at their Maine voting address, or
• who is temporarily living away from their Maine voting address, but the temporary address is located within the United States or a U.S. territory.

Please request your ballot by clicking >>here<<.

Bureau of Parks and Lands Announces New Outdoor Recreation Investments Map

The Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry's (DACF) Bureau of Parks and Lands (BPL) recently released the new Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Outdoor Recreation Investments Map for Maine, developed in collaboration with the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, Maine Office of Outdoor Recreation, Maine Recreation and Park Association, Maine Department of Transportation, Appalachian Mountain Club, and The Nature Conservancy. The map highlights investments in outdoor recreation such as trails, parks, and other projects. 870 LWCF-assisted outdoor recreation projects included on the map are safeguarded for everyone to enjoy perpetually. 

Two Maine Conservation Corps environmental stewards dedicated over 3,000 hours of service to creating the interactive recreation map. The process involved converting 2,700 paper records into a dynamic GIS database.

An additional position included in the recently enacted state budget will support improvements to the map and help ensure that resources developed through the fund remain permanently available to the public.

Since 1964, royalties paid by companies drilling for oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf have been dedicated to LWCF to protect national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges and to provide grants for state and local parks and outdoor recreation projects. Over the past six decades, the LWCF has played a pivotal role in ensuring those resources will be here for future generations. After years of diverting the program's specifically intended funds away from conservation, the LWCF was permanently funded in 2020 with the leadership of Maine's congressional delegation.

The Outdoor Recreation Investments Map is located on the BPL website: https://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/publications_maps/land-water-conservation-map.shtml.

Supporting Maine's Landowners

Do you have illegally dumped trash on your land?

Upcoming Agricultural State Fair Dates