Ranked-choice voting flawed
You cannot do a protest vote when the machinations of ranked-choice voting take effect nor can you split the vote. Some candidate, somehow, eventually gets a majority. Arguably, the flawed, runoff-voting method disenfranchises some voters, and it can lead to the election of an arbitrary candidate.
Consider this hypothetical scenario: Of three candidates, the Democrat gets 49.99 percent (they unanimously vote Green second choice), the Republican gets 25.01 percent (they also unanimously vote Green second choice) and the Green gets 25 percent (they happen to unanimously vote Republican second choice). Since no candidate has a majority, ranked-choice voting cancels the Green candidate; and the Republicans win with 25.01 percent first choice votes and 25 percent second choice votes.
Isn’t the Democrat’s 49.99 percent of the first choice votes better than the Republican’s combined 50.01 percent of the first and second choice votes?
The Green candidate had only 0.01 percent fewer first choice votes than the Republican; and she had 75 percent of the second choice votes. Even though she lost by a smidgen with the first choices, due to her popularity in the second, maybe she should win. Tell that to the Democrat who, in the first round, got twice as many votes as she. Unfairly, ranked-choice voting only counts second choice votes that were cast for the least popular candidate. It seems like disenfranchisement to me.
Theodore Weaver
Belfast
No corporate welfare
A corporate-welfare bill, LD 1781, to provide $60 million in tax breaks to General Dynamics, parent company of Bath Iron Works, is expected to pass in the Maine Legislature with bipartisan support.
Supporters of this bill claim the subsidies are needed to be competitive and to protect workers’ jobs. Yet, General Dynamics, a major contractor in the military-industrial complex, is making so much money at taxpayer expense they are buying back their own stock to boost the price of shares. They clearly have more than enough money to remain competitive. And the Bath shipyard still shed jobs despite their last welfare handout from the Legislature.
Threatening job loss and competition pressure is a tactic used against the public and our legislators who are vulnerable from campaign contributions.
In 2016, a Gallup poll found “The vast majority of those dissatisfied with the influence of major corporations want them to have less power than they do.”
Vulnerable legislators in large numbers ignore opinions of most Americans when they could attend to the wishes of constituents and at the same time do the morally right thing: curb corporate power and use the money to meet pressing needs for health care, education, the environment and infrastructure.
The collective voices and votes of citizens are more powerful than the love of money. There is still time to contact your legislators and oppose LD 1781.
Alice Bolstridge
Presque Isle
Keep ‘doughnut hole’ closed
I just learned that the big drug companies are lobbying on Capitol Hill to undermine efforts to keep drug prices reasonable. They want to re-open the Medicare Part D “doughnut hole” and shift even more costs onto older Americans who are already struggling to afford their prescription drugs.
This is unacceptable. Many Mainers are already financially challenged. Social Security only goes so far, and in Maine, the average monthly benefit is only about $1,000. That barely covers food, heat and other necessities. When you need to pay for prescriptions, which are already so expensive, it doesn’t take long for the money to run out.
Prescription drug prices are already out of control. Congress’ recent decision to close the doughnut hole in 2019 (instead of 2020 as mandated by the Affordable Care Act) was such a strong step forward, but the catch is that big pharma would have to pick up a greater share of the cost. They are fighting against this because they care more about their profits than the health and well-being of American seniors.
The drug companies don’t want to pay more, so they’re spending millions on lobbyists and lobbying campaigns to try to convince Congress to let them keep high prices and high profits. We have to fight back. Please join me, as a Maine constituent, in urging Sen. Susan Collins to say no to big pharma.
Shawn Lewin
Boothbay Harbor
Maine needs more drug cops
The best way to stop the drug problem in Maine is to concentrate on drug enforcement. If the drug flow into Maine is stopped, then the rehab problem will take care of itself. No drugs, no need for expensive rehab programs.
I believe we need to double or triple the number of drug officers in Maine. If need be, stop every car entering into the state until the problem is solved. Tough times require tough measures.
Doug Pooler
Dexter
How democracy dies
In their book “ How Democracies Die,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt warn that our country is moving from democracy toward an authoritarian state. Using more than 20 years of study, they identify signs of this change. Two are of particular concern: elected leaders using our democratic institutions to politicize either the rule of law or the law enforcement intelligence in an attempt to create personal shields or to go after their opponents, and elected leaders using ongoing efforts to delegitimize media and the election process.
They also provide questions to determine if our leaders are showing authoritarian behaviors. Some of these include the following:
— Do they attempt to undermine the legitimacy of elections, for example, by refusing to accept credible electoral results?
— Do they baselessly describe their partisan rivals as criminals?
— Have they tacitly endorsed violence by their supporters by refusing to unambiguously condemn it and punish it?
— Have they praised or refused to condemn other significant acts of political violence, either in the past or elsewhere in the world?
— Have they threatened to take legal or other punitive actions against critics in rival parties, civil society or the media?
We can and should counteract this movement by returning to norms that have kept our democracy strong, particularly the norms of accepting that our rivals have a right to exist, compete and govern, and avoiding actions that while meeting the letter of the law, violate its spirit.
Are we willing?
Susan Gross
Winthrop