To the Editor:
Enough is enough! I am sick and tired of all the hyperbole, innuendos, fabrications, insinuations and allegations when it comes to the elimination of voting rights of Maine’s citizens.
For 38 years, the people have had the right to register to vote on Election Day. Now, a certain group of people are at work trying to curtail some of Maine’s prerogatives – and banning registration on Election Day is just one of their attacks.
Not once have I read in the newspapers of voter fraud connected to this voting right. If there has been such a problem, a danger, why have we not seen or heard about it before this spring when all these charges began to circulate? They are trying to justify their actions on this issue.
Whatever reason a citizen has not enrolled before is nobody’s business but the voter and the citing of a number of states that allow (or not) same day registration has nothing to do with Maine. For as long as I can remember, and I am 80 years old, Maine has always led the country in statehood. Remember the saying “As Maine goes, so goes the Nation?”
In time, more and more states will see the value of serving their citizens with reasonable accommodations. Maine should continue to lead America in the path of fairness and justice for all.
Most of all – I am outraged at the insinuation that we only passed the petitions for getting the issue on the ballot because we got paid. To recall this dastardly legislation, we volunteered to gather the necessary signatures in the brief two and half weeks we were allotted.
The timing was another ploy to try to defeat us in our effort to bring the question to the people. Every dirty trick is being played to try to stifle the people’s voice, but we fooled them. We had an excess of signatures from citizens wanting to recall this legislation. So the question will be on the ballot – Item #1 – and to restore our voting rights we will vote “Yes.”
Let me say that everyone here in Lincoln County who worked so hard to gather necessary signatures were all volunteers. The report that thousands of dollars were paid to us is another one of their untruths. We all did this as a display of good citizenship on our part. These volunteers were not part of orchestrated organizations such as those lobbying against us.
The people involved have all been citizen volunteers from the League of Women Voters to the neighborhood church groups.
We shall prevail on Nov. 8 when we return the right to Maine’s people to enroll on Election Day if they have not registered before. We shall overcome.
Barbara Ann Johnson
Nobleboro
