PORTLAND – Forty-nine percent of Scarborough’s residents who voted in this month’s election cast absentee ballots, and between 20 and 30 percent of votes cast in Portland and Biddeford were by absentee.

High levels of absentee voting in those and other Maine communities are prompting local officials to suggest ways to make the process easier for voters and election workers. Their suggestions could reach the Legislature before the next major election.

“I think we ought to do what we can to facilitate early voting, if that’s what they want to do,” said Rep. Lawrence Bliss, a Democrat from South Portland, where 45 percent of the voters cast ballots by absentee.

“If the city and town clerks think that they can make it work,” Bliss said, “it’s worth letting them give it a try.”

Maine law allows voters to cast absentee ballots for any reason, and many Mainers sought to avoid crowded polls on Nov. 2 by casting their ballots early. Many voters instead found long lines when they voted early.

To smooth the process, some local election officials are suggesting that the state implement full-fledged early voting with regular ballots and voting machines that count each vote as it’s cast to avoid the slower process of ballot counting.

Several other states allow early voting.

Another idea is to suspend absentee voting at town halls on the day before the polls officially open to give local officials time to prepare for the election. In the past election, many local officials instead processed absentee ballots.

“You want municipal clerks in charge of elections to be in top form on Election Day, and none of us got any sleep the night before,” said City Clerk Linda Cohen in Portland, where election clerks handled 9,702 absentee ballots.

Deputy Secretary of State Doug Dunbar said early absentee voting in Maine was a success and helped generate a huge voter turnout.

He also said state election officials would consider suggestions for improvements by local election officials in advance of the next elections.