• Jeers to the voters for rejecting Question 7, the constitutional amendment to give municipal officials five extra days to validate citizen petitions. There was no organized campaign against its passage. Admittedly, there was no organization advocating for its approval, either. It just seemed obvious.

To everyone but the voters, that is. It was knocked down on Election Day.

If duct-taping and chokeholds are how Androscoggin County Jail guards treat each other, how do they treat the inmates? Probably better.

The repeal of same-sex marriage by voters at the polls Tuesday should not deter important efforts to instill equality under the law, but rather dictate its future course through the Legislature.

Some, in the heated aftermath of Question 1's approval, called the vote a statement of intolerance. It isn't — this interpretation would mean a majority of Mainers hold hatred in higher esteem than human rights, which is unfair and callous. That is not who we are.

The most significant question on Maine's ballot has turned out to be Question 5, the easy approval of which will create a network of nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries. We're leery of the idea, especially the mechanics of its oversight, but the voters have spoken.

One thing must be certain: Another decade should not pass before the intent of this citizen initiative is realized. Medical marijuana was approved in Maine in 1999, but the Legislature dithered for a decade without addressing how patients could acquire it legally.

FairPoint Communications is a victim of ambition and timing. Just when it started to run, the market meltdown took out its knees. Now the telecommunications firm is restructuring under Chapter 11, 98 percent of its shares are owned by creditors, and many accusations are flying about who is to blame for it all. 

Given our uber-connected society, there's something terrifically old-fashioned about voting. A real person checks your voter registration, hands over a weirdly hued ballot, directs you into a flimsy booth with a thin curtain and, with a black marker, democracy is done.

Considering we can now carry the works of William Shakespeare on our iPhones, this is positively quaint.

The proponents of TABOR and the excise tax cut (Questions 4 and 2, respectively) think they've caught Legislative leadership doing something criminal. A private meeting organized by a lobbyist between transportation heavyweights and the Senate President and Speaker of the House about TABOR and the excise tax, they say, was a veiled fundraiser, since those heavyweights, after the meeting, donated to anti-TABOR causes.

See? Blatant corruption!

Not quite.

Election Day is Tuesday (as everybody probably knows). We've weighed in with our opinions on Questions 1 through 7 on the ballot. Now, it's time for voters to cast their voyes.

So, to refresh, here's where we stand.

Question 1: Let the people decide.

Cheers and jeers from around the news:

• Cheers for Halloween and cheers for our annual Sun Journal editorial reminder to not do anything crazy or unsafe during Saturday's activities. Watch out for open flames around costumes. (That person is not trick-or-treating dressed as the Human Torch. He is on fire and needs help.)

In response to concerns regarding Wednesday's front-page article about panhandler John Stevens, we'd like to explain our thinking behind featuring his story so prominently.

Stevens' panhandling at an Auburn shopping center sparked a flurry of calls to our newsroom. "What is this guy's story?" we were asked. Once, long before this week, a reporter asked Stevens to talk and he refused. Then, this week, he contacted us — and told us, in clear language, that we had been ignoring him — and we tried again.

There's a solution to the growing phenomenon of "serialized meetings" among elected officials: Make every e-mail they send or receive, that pertains to public business, part of the official record for public meetings.

If put where everyone can see them, people could see what their representatives have been saying to their peers, to city or town staffers, or to their constituents. This way, nothing can be done in the darkness, since it is being forced into the sunshine.

Perhaps, changing how we look at downtown Lewiston starts with changing how we actually look at it.

Pine Street, downtown, runs one way between Canal and Sabattus streets. It's a vein that relieves pressure on the city's two primary arteries: Main and Lisbon streets. Today, Pine Street has little aesthetic or architectural significance. It is notable for serving its function as a road.

There's no harm in giving municipal officials five extra days to certify signatures on petitions. None. Zero. Zilch.

It's needed. There are occasions now when town offices must rush through validations for reasons beyond their origination. If a petition-gatherer dawdles until the last day to drop off their sheets, officials must respond in haste. This is neither fair to them, nor to the democratic process.

Citizen opposition to bond issues often falls along these lines: (a) the state shouldn't spend money it doesn't have, and (b) when the money runs tight in my house, I cut my budget instead of borrowing more. All good points; we don't like spending or borrowing beyond our means, either.

But the true measure of a bond is what it proposes to buy, not the amount being spent. Starting or expanding a business, or buying or remodeling a home, means borrowing. If the return on the investment is sound, and the timing is right, issuing a bond makes good sense.

We should have expected this to happen. As soon as Sen. Olympia Snowe voted for health care reform, the nation's eyes turned toward her counterpart, Sen. Susan Collins. Hijinks ensued.

Some stories said she was open to reform. Others said she was signaling her willingness to vote for it. (How, we don't know. Semaphore flags? Morse Code?) Collins refuted these reports with guarded statements that neither expressed an outright support, nor a clear opposition for a position.

Ten years ago, Maine voters legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes. A wise method of procuring marijuana, however, was never created by the Legislature. So the state's handful of medical marijuana users either grow their own in small amounts or break the law to comply with the law.

Cheers and jeers from around the news:

• Cheers to Lewiston and Auburn, for voting to buy new software to streamline joint services. The votes didn't merit much fanfare. It was done quickly and efficiently — just the way we like it.

City officials were ebullient about it after the vote, and said the software would be the foundation for future progress toward shared services. We're thrilled they think this way, and can't help but note it's overdue. Sharing services to save money is a tremendous idea.

Picture this.

You live on a pristine speck of land that fronts a picturesque bay. There are evergreen-topped islands out on the horizon and a rocky shoreline at your feet. Soft summer breezes cascade your front porch and, during the night, the only sounds you hear are the lapping of gentle waves.

On Tuesday, many landlords in Lewiston came to the City Council to protest a new city action started in the wake of an August fire that killed a 9-year-old girl, Taylor McQueeney.

The action was this: The city would post placards on apartment units without power, telling tenants and landlords they would be fined if electricity was not restored. Landlords seemed to think that meant they should foot the tenant's overdue bill.

If the state was interested in promoting the economy in central Maine, it should direct investments in railroad infrastructure into Auburn, where the inland "port" handles more freight traffic than any of the state's three seaside shipping locales: Portland, Eastport and Searsport.

This investment would serve a twofold purpose: strengthening the ability of the busy Port of Auburn, plus laying groundwork for new passenger service from central Maine toward southern New England and beyond, i.e. Boston and New York City.

Letters regarding the matters to be decided on Election Day, Nov. 3, must arrive at the Sun Journal (or be postmarked) by Friday, Oct. 23, at 5 p.m. Submissions delivered after that deadline will not be published. Given the volume of submissions regarding this year's ballot items, letters that are over our 250-word limit will not be afforded an opportunity for revision. For any other questions about the letters policies of the Sun Journal, please call Editorial Page Editor Anthony Ronzio at 689-2885 or e-mail: letters@sunjournal.com.

If looking for a post-modern sign of the apocalypse, try this: a father uses his 6-year-old son and a homemade helium balloon to execute a gasp-inducing publicity stunt to earn attention, and maybe a reality television show. That'll do it.

Like everybody else, we were spellbound last Thursday while following the story of the soaring Falcon Heene and his incredible — and bizarre — balloon ride high above Colorado. It was a perfect made-for-television spectacle, a gripping daylight drama with life-or-death consequences.

We dislike Maine's automobile excise tax.

Paying an annual chunk of money for owning a car grates against our more Libertarian sensibilities. That the tax is based on a vehicle's Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price also adds insult to agony, since MSRP is a fairy tale figure. Nobody pays it.

Yet even though the excise tax provokes this visceral reaction, we do not favor Question 2, which asks Maine voters to chop it in half, and create tax incentives to purchase "green" vehicles. We might be ornery, but we're not myopic.

Dire predictions always follow initiatives that could decrease the amount of money government may spend. Depending on who's talking, tax-and-spending limiting initiatives like the Taxpayer Bill of Rights will either cause schoolchildren to shiver if enacted, or issue a license to spend if rejected.

• Three cheers to Dave and Lacey Castro of Lewiston for winning the annual wife-carrying (spouse-schlepping?) contest at Sunday River. The Castros ran past 40 other couples — including somebody said to be the world's fittest man — to the crown, winning Lacey's weight — 97 pounds — of beer as the prize.