The Maine ACLU has expressed "deep concern" that Secretary of State Charles Summers may have violated the federal Voting Rights Act.

The Maine ACLU argued that Summers intimated newly registered voters in Maine by sending them a letter which said that the new voters must also get a Maine drivers license and register their cars in the state within 30 days. The tussle over new voters began when GOP chair Charles Webster alleged that 206 students in the UMaine system may have committed voter fraud.

"Your own investigation found no illegal registration by any of these students," the Maine ACLU wrote in a letter to Summers. "Threatening prosecution, even indirectly, under the motor vehicle laws based on their status as registered voters is precisely the type of intimidation and harassment of persons exercising their lawful right to register and vote in a federal election covered by Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act."

The letter was also sent to the US Department of Justice for review.

“We should be encouraging all eligible voters, and especially young voters, to get involved in the political process," Katie O'Connor, Staff Attorney for the ACLU Voting Rights Project said. “Instead, the Secretary of State has scared a new generation of Maine voters away from the polls. He owes these students an apology, and he owes the State of Maine a retraction of such voter suppression efforts.”

The Secretary of State's office has received the complaint but Summers has not commented on it yet.t

Image credit of Secretary Summers: Maine.gov; Image of Maine ACLU from its website