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My elderly mother probably would have lost her ability to vote under the law proposed by Question 1, restricting absentee voting and requiring photo ID. She lived until she was 98, requiring assisted living in later years. Always engaged, she valued her vote.
She used a walker, didn’t drive, and had no valid photo ID. How would she get a photo ID?
She depended on absentee voting. Could she have obtained and properly submitted the application for the ballot with the required ID? Could she have managed the complicated ballot mailing with its two envelopes, ID, confusing affidavit, and multiple signatures? She’d need a lot of help. Question 1 would limit my help, effectively preventing me from requesting her absentee ballot for her or from delivering her ballot to the town clerk.
We had much to do together on my many visits from three hours away: finances, doctors, shopping, bringing family joy. But a trip to the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles office, plus the two bureaucratic forms in order to submit the ballot? That marathon might have foiled us.
Is this how we want to treat our elders trying to exercise their last years of civic purpose?
This referendum will surely cost thousands of disabled and elderly voters their vote. (They showed ID already when they registered!) I believe it’s wrong. We should make it easy for our elders to vote, not disenfranchise them. Vote no on Question 1.
Mary Henderson
Topsham