Honorable Shenna Bellows
Maine's 50th Secretary of State
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is Maine’s 50th Secretary of State and first female Secretary of State. She serves on the Executive Board of the National Association of Secretaries of State as the Eastern Region Vice President. She chairs the national Executive Committee of the Election Infrastructure-Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC.) She also serves on the Elections Assistance Commission. Secretary Bellows previously served two terms in the Maine Senate from 2016-2020, during which she served as Senate Chair of the Labor and Housing Committee and served on the Judiciary Committee. Prior to public service, she was Executive Director of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine on the UMA campus, where she now serves on the UMA Board of Visitors. From 2005 to 2013, Secretary Bellows was executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. She was a member of the first Right to Know Advisory Committee and the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition. She served on the Executive Committee of the 2009 and 2012 ballot campaigns to pass marriage equality in Maine and co-chaired a successful 2011 statewide ballot campaign to restore same-day voter registration. She was an original member of the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting.
Secretary Bellows grew up in Hancock and is a graduate of Ellsworth High School. She holds a B.A. in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College. She volunteered with the Peace Corps in Panama and AmeriCorps VISTA in Nashville, Tennessee. She is also a graduate of the Emerge Maine program, the Institute for Civic Leadership in Portland, and the Yale Campaign School for Women.
Historical List of Secretaries of State, 1820-present - Provided by the Law and Legislative Reference Library.