|In My Opinion, Ben Tettlebaum|
If you look no further than Question 1’s requirement to show a photo ID when voting, you’d be forgiven for thinking that seems a reasonable enough mandate. Arguments exist on both sides of the issue, though one way to approach it is with the proverb “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” How do we know it “ain’t broke”? State election officials and independent researchers have repeatedly confirmed that voter fraud in Maine and across the country is vanishingly rare. That begs the question: what problem is voter ID really trying to solve? Put differently, Question 1 is a solution in search of a problem.
But let’s assume you think it’s fine to require presenting a photo ID when voting given we’re accustomed to doing so for myriad transactions these days. That isn’t the most troubling provision, by far, in Question 1. In fact, the voter ID issue obscures the more concerning provisions that, like voter ID, aim to address a virtually non-existent problem and complicate an otherwise healthy voting system in our state.
Those additional provisions would:
- make it harder to acquire an absentee ballot;
- limit the number of election drop boxes in a municipality to one; and
- mandate a bipartisan team of election officials to collect ballots from drop boxes.
Why are those bad policy choices? Because they take direct aim at the values Mainers cherish: independence; freedom; and local control.
By making it harder to vote by absentee ballot, Question 1 would primarily harm seniors and people with disabilities, undercutting their independence and freedom to vote. By limiting the days we can vote absentee and the number of drop boxes, Question 1 removes the ability of towns to determine what works best for their residents. And by replacing a town’s own municipal clerk with a so-called “bipartisan team of election officials,” the ballot measure politicizes a process that should be non-partisan and implies we can’t trust our own town staff to do the job they’ve done just fine for decades.
It would be a different matter if Question 1 were just about voter ID. But all you need to do is look at the actual language of the ballot measure to see what’s really going on. This is about mistrust of our own ability to determine what works best for our town, stripping us of our independence, freedom, and local control. And that I can’t support. It ain’t broke, so stop trying to fix it.
That’s why I’ll be voting no on Question 1.
Ben Tettlebaum
New Gloucester resident
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