Don’t vote your rights away
To the Editor;
There is a thief in Dover-Foxcroft. It currently exists in the proposed revision of the town charter and it’s ready to steal away your right to vote all the budgetary warrant articles presented on the ballot at the June municipal election. That’s right! If you approve the revised town charter appearing as a referendum on this June’s ballot you will effectively lose the ability to vote by secret ballot on any budget-related item except a “bottom line” budget total.
Instead of the secret ballot, the revised charter would require voters to return to the “open town meeting” and to the formerly discarded system of raising your hand in response to each of the budget articles as presented. In its proposed form, the charter will only permit an “up” or “down” written ballot vote for a final “bottom line” budget total.
The thief in the revised charter takes away the ability to understand and the freedom to vote for any individual budget elements. It also eradicates all semblance of privacy and eliminates all possibility for administrative transparency.
The work of the thief is complete when it can widen the gap between administrative accountability and taxpayer responsibility. Eliminating even part of the secret ballot does just that.
Ask yourself, why would the Charter Revision Commission undertake destruction of the secret ballot? Why would they take a backward step to a time long gone? What possibly could be their agenda? Might it be to give the selectmen still more power and control. Maybe it’s their desire to provide a vocal few, at open town meeting the opportunity to suppress the wishes of the voting majority who desire to express themselves in the privacy and freedom of the voting booth. Have we somehow forgotten that power without compassion gives corruption its roots?
The Charter Revision Commission claims they modeled their proposed revision after the “open voting” that takes place for the school budget and we all know how that turns out. The teachers and school staff all show up in overwhelming numbers thereby possibly silencing an impartially interested citizen. Most assuredly the vested interests would never vote against their own salary increases. Take that same concept and apply it to an “open town meeting” and well, you get the picture.
The proposal to eliminate the secret ballot appears to have come from the Obama playbook — to effectively transform America — in this case, Dover-Foxcroft. Or may be it’s the Washington, D.C. influence reflected through the likes of ACORN or OFA. Might the thief even be a “community organizer”?
When it comes to budgeting, no one can ever have too much information. A while back the secret ballot clearly showed through its articles how much each town government entity and department would need in order to maintain its necessary services.
Elimination of the secret ballot with all its articles will push the town backwards to a time long passed. There is too much at stake to permit ourselves to be governed by sentimentality. Voting a budget must be done with full knowledge and a rational mind afforded in the privacy of the voting booth. Only the secret ballot as originally conceived provides that opportunity.
Don’t let the thief pull off a not-so-clever caper. Vote “No” in June to the revised charter.
Don Benjamin
Dover-Foxcroft