Don’t streamline your voting rights away

To the Editor;
Is there really any logical reason for the Charter Revision Commission to eliminate the ability of Dover-Foxcroft residents to vote all budgetary Articles by Secret ballot in the privacy of the voting booth at June’s municipal election?

Oh sure, the Commission will attest that you can still exercise a single, secret ballot vote for the “bottom line” budget total, but should you be unable to attend the April Town Meeting you’ll be apt to never know how your tax dollars are apportioned and spent.

As presently proposed the revised Charter will return to a small, vocal minority of residents voting in “open” town meeting and they will determine and have the power to allocate tax money extracted from the majority. With multi-million dollar town budgets at stake, no one should be denied the knowledge of exactly how that money is acquired, allocated and utilized. Having that privilege/right to vote for each Article in the privacy of the voting booth should be the only way a forward-looking town can present itself.

As the Charter Revision Commission extolled the virtues of its deliberations and conclusions, they reported how they had modeled their recommended changes after the way school budgets are approved. We know how that works — school administrators, staff and faculty all show up en mass to vote themselves salary increases and other “qoodies.” The average citizen can protest those kinds of proceedings, but is totally overwhelmed by the school system’s vested interests.

Ah ah, that’s it — vested interest! Those are the folks who show up at “open” town meeting. They’re voting an agenda and it is not necessarily for transparency, accountability and preservation of the town’s treasury.

Those of us who prefer voting by secret ballot in the privacy of a curtained voting booth want to retain that ability. In recent years we’ve seen a reduction in the number of Warrant Articles appearing on secret ballots, and you might inquire why that has happened. Again, it seems more like an agenda issue perpetrated by those preparing the ballot, rather than those
casting their vote. We’ll be told the proposed changes have been done in the interest of “streamlining” the voting process. Might that be just be a not so subtle “spin” when the real reason is to restrict voter knowledge and reduce our freedom of choice?

Don’t give away your power to the vocal pressure and intimidation of a few at “open” town meeting. Don’t permit the desires of that same few to dictate how you’ll vote, where you can vote and in what form you cast your vote.

Let’s just stick with the secret ballot. You can preserve that right very easily by simply voting “No” to the Charter revision at the June Municipal election.

Don Benjamin
Dover-Foxcroft