To the Editor:
Let me remind all you good people who signed the petition to get the Save Same-Day Voter Registration referendum item on the ballot that was only half the battle. To win the battle, you must show up at your several town halls or other voting stations on Tues., Nov. 8, and vote for it.
It is fortunate that the Election-Day Voter Registration item is #1 on the ballot. Since referendum ballot wording is apt to be tricky, remember this simple slogan: “Yes on 1.”
A little history: The legislature in its current paranoia about voter fraud rewrote the registration rules to force new voters -either first timers or people newly moved to a town – to register at least two working days before any election. This sounds so reasonable, but think: It requires you to show up at your town office on a Thursday at the latest, in order to be eligible to vote on a Tuesday.
If you are working, or are a student in classes, especially if you commute long distances, and if your town’s office hours are like Edgecomb’s, 7-9 p.m. on Mondays, 1-5 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you will be hard put to get this bureaucratic detail taken care of.
In order to make it possible for Joe and Jane Citizen to exercise their inalienable right to vote under the U.S. Constitution, for 38 years our town clerks have been glad to extend the election-day registration courtesy, which, of course, requires that you have identification with you.
It is not as if there were any mad rush by the millions to pound on the gates to register on Election Day. Usually there is only one or two and the occasional van-full of college kids.
It’s a little hard to understand why the current administration is so eager to chase the from-away college kids away. I thought we wanted to attract the rest of the world to Maine, but this legislation, if unchanged, is bound to be a discouragement.
So remember, friends, be sure to go to the polls on Tuesday, November 8, and mark the referendum ballot “Yes on 1.”
Jo Cameron
Edgecomb
