To the Editor:
I’ve been living in our great state of Maine for 32 years, and I’m tired.
I’m tired of negative campaigning during election years, which gets worse every cycle. Every election cycle we hear the same complaints about negativity, and every cycle all the candidates do more of it. Why? Because in our current system, it works.
I’m tired of candidates being judged on whether they can win, instead of their qualifications.
I’m tired of people feeling forced into voting against a candidate they don’t like, instead of for the candidate that actually represents them. I am exhausted with complaints about spoilers whenever independent candidates run for office.
We deserve better. We deserve campaigns that focus on issues and policies, and less on cheap shots. We deserve to be able to vote for candidates we support, instead of voting for “anyone but that guy.” We deserve a system that works with our rich, independent tradition; a system that guarantees elected officials have majority support every time.
We deserve rank choice voting! Portland used it a few years ago for a 15 candidate mayoral election, and it worked great!
Confusion was low, turnout was high, and the campaign was far less negative than anyone expected. Wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of experience with our three to six candidate statewide elections?
We can make this better. Ranked choice voting will be coming soon to a ballot near you, and I hope you’ll join me in supporting this momentous step forward for Maine. No one should be afraid of making elections actually reflect the will of the majority, as they are supposed to, no matter how many candidates run.
If you want to learn more, please visit www.rcvmaine.com/faq.
Robert Brown
Jefferson
