On August 2, the Maine legislature adjourned. The session had been the longest in Maine history. Only three election law bills passed in 2017. LD 1571 made minor improvements for minor parties seeking to get on the ballot and remain on. LD 297 raises the costs for candidates to seek a recount. LD 1384 made many small changes to the election law, including removing write-in space from the ballot unless a declared write-in candidate files. Governor Paul LePage had vetoed the latter two bills, but in each case the legislature overrode his veto.

Bills that failed to become law would have done these things: install a top-two system; let independent voters vote in primaries without joining a party at the polls on primary election day; change the law on ranked choice voting; ban paying petitioners per signature; require statewide initiative petitions to collect a certain number of signatures in each US House district; cut back public funding; remove partisan labels from the ballot for candidates who use the independent petition procedure; and remove the requirement that five sample ballots be posted at each polling place (the bill lowered that to just one sample ballot per polling place). That latter bill, LD 1058, had passed the legislature but the Governor vetoed it and his veto was sustained.