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You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / You’ll also want to vote on voting rights, because you’re good and decent people

You’ll also want to vote on voting rights, because you’re good and decent people

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Maine has a citizen veto, too, today:

Question 1: People’s Veto

Do you want to reject the section of Chapter 399 of the Public Laws of 2011 that requires new voters to register to vote at least two business days prior to an election?

You’d want to REJECT that, I imagine. Good for Maine for using such plain language on their ballot. It’s almost like they want people to actually know what they’re voting on. That would be YES to REJECT on Question One.

Reader Interactions

36Comments

  2. 2.

    geg6

    Mainers need to be a bastion against the hordes of wingnuts trying to keep the young and brown from exercising their voting rights. Go Mainers!

    The big issue locally is one for Pittsburgh voters. They have cut and cut and cut funding for the great Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. There is a referendum to assess a $25 a year (per hundred thousand of assessed value) tax on property to fund the 19 branches of the library. I’m hoping it passes because this is one of the great libraries in all of the USA, especially the main library in Oakland, sitting next to the Carnegie Museum and between the campuses of Pitt and CMU. A beautiful and magical place when I was a child.

  3. 3.

    Mino

    I just early-voted on a string of proposals that were such gibberish it was impossible to get a clue to what was intended. Malpractice is the norm here in Texas now. I think Luntz designs our ballots.

    It’s become so bad that if yu see a proposal the says it’s for clean water, you probably would be voting to allow more pollution if you voted for it.

  6. 6.

    deep cap

    I’m voting in Massachusetts today which only has local elections between a traditional Democrat and a progressivist Democrat for Mayor of my town.

  7. 7.

    Steve

    Here in Jersey we have sports betting on the ballot. Not exactly as important as voting rights. And it’s illegal under federal law anyway!

  8. 8.

    Linda Featheringill

    Good for Maine for having a clear ballot.

    In Ohio, Issue 1 is totally confusing. I asked a friend for an explanation and got it and I still wonder why the hell they killed trees to put that nonsense on the ballot. So I voted no.

    No on 2, of course, and no on 3. Issue 3 has to do with Ohio’s [probably futile] efforts to avoid Obama’s health care plan. My friend said that federal law would trump state law on this topic so it doesn’t matter so much how the election goes.

    There were a couple of issues for funding stuff and local election. I think that my new home is a well-run little city and so I voted for the incumbents, regardless of political affiliation. Excellence should be rewarded.

  10. 10.

    Yevgraf

    OT – on an amusing note, Penn State has a presser today. Apparently, it is to solely focus on the upcoming game, and no questions on Sandusky will be entertained. The Onion got nuthin’ on real life.

  11. 11.

    MomSense

    Kay, thanks for posting this! The way we have been explaining it to folks here is “Vote Yes on 1 to restore same-day voter registration”

    @Baud
    Yes we are predominantly white here but that is changing rapidly. There are over 400 languages spoken in Portland, Lewiston-Auburn etc.

    It is directed at students and at people who move frequently (often because of job insecurity), and the elderly. One of the worst aspects of this new law is that town clerks used to be able to go to nursing homes and assisted livings to conduct absentee voting. Now residents would have to file a special application for the clerk to visit and witness the absentee voting. The clerks are upset because there are so many elders who will now be disenfranchised.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    @Baud: True dat.

    @MomSense:

    There are over 400 languages spoken in Portland, Lewiston-Auburn etc.

    So I guess that means there are now 400 ways of saying, “Fuck, it’s cold.” :)

  14. 14.

    Jay C

    Good for Maine for using such plain language on their ballot. It’s almost like they want people to actually know what they’re voting on

    “Using plain language”? People “knowing what they’re voting on”?

    Must be a librul plot to encourage voting fraud: we know no real Republican/conservative/teabagger would ever allow such electoral abominations to occur….

  15. 15.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Baud: That, I don’t know. I am teaching everyone in Latin One this week the immortal, and timely, Esne nactus iam cervum? (Got your deer yet?”)

  16. 16.

    Poopyman

    No voting today in Maryland (outside of Balmer), so (ATTENTION WINGNUTS!!) I am free to come vote in your state to defeat the evil Repuglican machine. Just need you to pay the gas money and I’ll come vote as many times as you’d like.
    ( / ATTENTION WINGNUTS!)

  17. 17.

    MomSense

    @Davis X. Machina

    If you are in Mid Coast or Downeast you would say “Bagged your deah (deer) yet?”

  18. 18.

    Davis X. Machina

    We’re up in the foothills of the White Mountains. When I’ve got “Go ’round the parking lot and look for the smokers” duty, I can see the Presidential Range. A little white on the taller peaks today…

  20. 20.

    beergoggles

    Saw this on JMG today. Ad buy in a couple papers.

    Apparently these assholes are saying that ‘teh gay’ is out to steal ur vote.

    Fucktards the lot of them.

    I think it should be voting “YES” to keep same day registration.

  21. 21.

    handsmile

    MomSense and Davis X. Machina
    (or any other BJ resident of the Pine Tree State):

    What’s your prediction on the success of Question 1?

    Anything that will disrupt the predations of Tea Party governor Paul LePig is to be commended, but how will the other ballot referenda on local casinos/racinos affect turnout? I understand that he asserted last week that the state could not afford multiple casinos.

  22. 22.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mino:

    Here in California, I have adopted Kevin Drum’s strategy of voting No on just about every proposition because I’ve been burned one too many times by poorly or deceptively worded ones.

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    @Mino:

    I just early-voted on a string of proposals that were such gibberish it was impossible to get a clue to what was intended. Malpractice is the norm here in Texas now.

    One of the few nice things about direct democracy here in California is that the ballot pamphlets are very good. We get a summary of the expected effects of the measure written by the state’s non-partisan legislative analyst, brief statements and rebuttals by the pro and anti sides of the measure, and, for the real masochists, the full text of all the proposals. The big problem is that this means a full ballot pamphlet can run well over 100 letter-sized pages, so it gets hard to actually read that much detail for all the proposals.

  26. 26.

    Yutsano

    In WA we have two big wingnut initiatives going up for consideration: 1125 (an anti-transportation bill done by local anti-tax zealot Tim Eyman, he does one issue a year it seems) and 1183 (which is a second bite at the apple for privatizing liquor sales) and both are NO.

  27. 27.

    Davis X. Machina

    @MomSense: People from Away are the worst, especially if they’re Flatlanders, who are worser, or Massholes, which are worser still — except for Summer People, and Leaf-peepers, who at least leave money behind.

    The Bushes are and always will be Summer People. Come Labor Day, the Summer People stiff the Help.

    That bridge down in Kittery has a lot to answer for.

  29. 29.

    Mino

    @Roger Moore: Our newpaper used to run a ballot page, but it’s become so partisan, I wouldn’t believe it either.

    League of Women Voters used to do the same. Don’t know if they still do it in some places, but I haven’t heard anything from them in SA.

  30. 30.

    MomSense

    @Davis X. Machina

    Those summer people helped to put me through college with their tips except for the Bush family–not good tippers! I grew up in K’Port or Epcot Centah as the northern Mainahs call it.

    Massholes are the worsest!

    @handsmile
    I really don’t know what will happen. I think Yes is ahead in terms of polling so it will probably come down to timing. There has been a new round of bieber awful direct mailings and tv ads. I haven’t seen the direct mailings but I have heard people talking about the “3,000 illegals who will be able to steal our elections”.

    I know that I will be making GOTV calls on my lunch break and after work right up until the polls close. Whenever these a$$hole Republicans try and take our rights away we need to fight back!

  32. 32.

    handsmile

    @MomSense: (#30)

    Thanks for your response, and even more thanks for your honorable GOTV efforts to reclaim Maine from the Rethugs.

    Mrs. handsmile and I are making efforts to extract ourselves from the urban hellhole of NYC and move to the Portland area. (For the past fifteen years, we have vacationed on the Pemaquid penisula.) Nothing makes us happier than the sight of the north-bound view of the Piscataqua Bridge. Dirigo!

  33. 33.

    Davis X. Machina

    @MomSense: I was born in Dorchester — I and my New Joisey wife are just grateful she was allowed to drop our anchor babies up heah.

  35. 35.

    MomSense

    @Davis X. Machina

    I married a Masshole!! It is a great place to raise kiddos, certainly beats the dirty jersey!

    @handsmile

    I love Pemaquid. My cousin was married right on the cliff by the lighthouse. It was a slightly foggy late afternoon and they had a bagpiper–perfection!

    I think you will like Portland. It is a wonderful, small city and you can hop on a train any old time you want to visit the urban hellhole. We always honk our horn halfway across the Piscataqua bridge! Dirigo!

    I think several of the papers here run a constant tally of the votes as the precincts report. I’ll try and post a link later if you want to follow a long.

  36. 36.

    redshirt

    I hope #1 passes. This whole effort by LePage has been repugnant – filled with lies and an obviously apparent attempt to limit voting rights.

    Complete with Ad campaigns financed by nameless outside groups trying to scare Mainers about “OTHERS” from outside wrecking Maine’s elections. It’s transparent bull. But hey – 27% guaranteed!

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