Praise for 1-minute hike
I really enjoy Aislinn Sarnacki’s 1-minute hikes. How about publishing a guide book or pamphlet of Sarnacki’s hikes? I would really like to have one. I have tried to save the newspaper articles, but I know I have missed more than a few. I have talked to other friends and am not the only one who would like to see all of her articles in one compilation. I’m sure this would be a popular item.
Lydia Daigle
Houlton
Ranked-choice voting fair system
Some recent contributions to the Bangor Daily News by political partisans against ranked-choice voting have nitpicked and exaggerated. Dating back more than 100 years, ranked-choice voting isn’t some kind of alien “experiment.” It also has been used for many years in other countries.
Highly-partisan efforts to repeal it in San Francisco have failed. Aspen, Colorado, maintains an instant runoff system to get a true winner, and many jurisdictions in North Carolina continue to pilot ranked-choice voting. The Republican Party of Utah uses a form of ranked-choice voting in its convention voting and has used it in to fill legislative vacancies. It has been successful and popular in the large majority of places where it has been used in the U.S. and abroad.
And it is certainly easy. Voters just rank multi-candidate races in order of preference on a simple ballot. If someone gets a majority, it’s over. If not, the last-place finisher is dropped, and the second-choice votes on those ballots are distributed to the remaining candidates until there is a true winner with a real majority.
The highly-partisan negative writers want us to somehow think that it is fairer to have a winner who fails to get an actual majority of the vote. This defies common sense. Ranked-choice voting increases fairness and democracy by making sure that those who serve in office do so with an actual majority of the vote. Ranked-choice voting is an easy, nonpartisan election reform that we should adopt in Maine.
Ron Bilancia
Brewer
Maine supports national monument
I’m sure I’m not the only supporter of the proposed Maine woods national monument wondering why Sen. Angus King and Rep. Bruce Poliquin have not yet endorsed the proposal. I was at King’s public meeting with National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis more than a month ago in Orono. Just like the senator, I saw how overwhelmingly people support the proposal. The Collins Center for the Arts was filled with people wearing T-shirts, hats and stickers. When they gave Jarvis a standing ovation before he even said anything, the few dozen opponents disappeared in a sea of support for a brighter future.
Likewise, I was there when Poliquin held a congressional field hearing and public meeting in East Millinocket. Supporters again outnumbered opponents four to one.
With public meetings and countless polls, I’m not sure how much clearer we can be. I live in southern Penobscot County, but I own a home in Millinocket and spend as much time there as I can. I have many friends in the communities around the proposed monument. I am very interested in this proposal and want to do what I can to make it a reality.
King and Poliquin say Mainers need to be heard, but they don’t seem to be listening despite the volume. The job of those we elect to represent us is to share our support of the national monument with the president. It’s time for King and Poliquin to publicly endorse this proposal.
Debbie Gilmer
Orono
Support ranked-choice voting
In November, I will be voting for ranked-choice voting. Ranked-choice voting allows voters to rank candidates running for office in the order of their preference. Ranked-choice voters would force the candidates to actually discuss the issues and reduce mudslinging. Under ranked-choice voting, the candidates are trying to attract the majority of voters. It will reduce the spoiler effect in campaigns. Voters can get behind their candidate without the worries of throwing away their vote.
Ranked-choice voting also would address the issue of candidates winning by far less than the majority of the vote. Since 1974, nine of the 11 Maine governors received far less than 50 percent of votes. This is not a majority rules situation.
Ranked-choice voting is fairly simple. Voters first vote for the candidate they like the most, and then they select their second choice and so on. Once all votes are counted, if the first choice has 50 percent or more of the cast ballots, then they win the election. If not, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and the supporters of that candidate have their second choice factored in. This goes on until the most broadly supported candidate is elected.
Let democracy work.
Joseph Mailey
Auburn
Who’s crazy?
Hillary Clinton recently went to full-bore attack on Donald Trump’s unsuitability to be president, claiming his unstable, erratic nature should disqualify him from ever commanding America’s military forces and getting his hands on the nuclear codes.
On the other hand, uber-qualified-for-the-job Clinton seemed eager to create a no-fly zone over Syria that could have resulted in the shooting down of Russian planes, which could escalate into a nuclear war. President Barack Obama has us participating in useless, massive NATO maneuvers in Poland that could, in a number of conceivable ways, careen out of control. And it was John F. Kennedy, a much-admired president rarely cited as insane, who took his game of nuclear chicken with the Soviets up to within a hair of universal midnight. It is not obvious to me that a panic-inducing phone call to unpredictable Trump is more likely than escalation of situations set up by these (and past) “responsible” leaders.
It is the clinically sane people with power, the responsible Democrats and Republicans, generals, planners and experts, every president you’ve ever loathed and every president you’ve ever admired, almost every member of Congress you’ve ever voted for or against, who have set up the lunatic, dysfunctional nuclear genocide machine by which all human hopes hang by an absurd, fragile hair every hour and every day. And the rest of us have tolerated the institution of this thing, and paid for it. And many call Trump crazy.
Gene Clifford
Mount Desert