Criminalizing Signature Gathering a Step Backward

This week the state legislature will begin considering a bill (LD 1726) that includes a measure to ban the collection of signatures at polling places on election day. I support voters passing through polling places without interference; I also support citizens’ use of this space to engage each other. The rules already exist to ensure the orderly conduct of elections as well as the collection of petition signatures after voting. This new initiative is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, and is yet another attempt to restrict citizens’ practice of democracy.

Our electoral system faces many challenges: money, gerrymandering, hacking, repeated attempts to remove eligible voters from voting rolls and dysfunctional partisanship. Fortunately, there are also significant initiatives for electoral reform. Ranked Choice Voting — which would reward candidates who speak to the middle rather than the extremes, would increase the voice and choice of all voters, and would return Maine to the majority elections we once had — is chief among these.

With the support of citizen forums, volunteer signature gathers, and voters from all over Maine from all political parties and no political party, RCV keeps winning. Signatures were gathered to place it on the ballot in November 2016, and once there it garnered the second highest support of any referendum in Maine’s history. Nonetheless, as with the other successful citizen referenda of November 2016, on minimum wage, school funding, and legalization of marijuana, RCV has been obstructed by the legislature. Now once again the supporters of RCV are gathering signatures to restore this significant reform that has been voted in by the people of Maine. What better place to do this than at the polls themselves, where interested voters come? Yet now the next step of the Legislature is to consider restricting our capacity to gather signatures by criminalizing this activity at polling places. When we win by the rules — the rules get changed. Enough.

Amy Smith,

Arrowsic