When Mainers pushed back after Republicans eliminated same-day registration, Charlie Webster sought to justify the new law by repeating his old story of “busloads of out-of-staters” being brought to the polls to vote Democratic.
Webster’s outrage was born in Farmington a dozen or more years ago. Back then, those most upset were Farmington’s old-guard Republicans.
Then, as now, someone pointed out that the buses were vans and the out-of-staters were university students who, by Supreme Court decision in Symm vs. United States, may vote in the state in which they attend school.
This time, ignoring Symm, Webster rushed a list of the alleged miscreants to Secretary of State Charlie Summers, whose office conducted a two-month study and discovered that, wonder of wonders, no fraud was committed. Still, Summers threatened the students with demands that they become permanent residents of Maine, the Symm decision be damned.
Newspapers were soon filled with eerily similar letters about how registering early shouldn’t be a hardship for truly red, white and blue Mainers. The letter-writing campaign ignored the fact that same-day registration has worked well and voter participation in Maine is high, a good thing in most people’s eyes.
Were they capable of honesty, Republican politicians could have made a single headline at the very beginning of the brouhaha by admitting that it’s all about making voting more difficult for those who might vote Democratic.
It’s called voter suppression and it’s a nationwide Republican effort.
Tony Nazar, Wilton
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