FARMINGTON – Beth Mathieu is disappointed she can’t vote this year. The 17-year-old University of Maine at Farmington freshman has been working on the Maine Won’t Discriminate campaign.
“I would really like to be able to vote on this issue,” she said as she wistfully watched fellow students cast absentee ballots at the Farmington town office Thursday.
Hundreds of students across the state participated in “Vote Louder,” an event designed to encourage people to vote early by absentee ballot. Though they did not tell people how to vote, the all-day event was geared toward defeating Question 1, which asks voters to repeal a law protecting Maine citizens from discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Mathieu rode to the town office with about eight other students in a UMF van to learn more about voting so she can be ready next year. Mathieu will be 18 on Nov. 26.
UMF students used a maroon van emblazoned with the simple message “vote” in the windows to shuttle students from the Olsen Student Center on campus to the Farmington town office to cast their votes. Back at the student center, they provided voter registration cards and handed out buttons to those who cast ballots.
Standing under a wall of photographs people under the heading “Vote No on 1, Maine Won’t Discriminate” in the UMF student center, Dimitra Kioussis put her arm around her lesbian friend Andrea Bechen. Kioussis said she’s not gay.
“But I’m an ally,” she said grinning.
In Portland, University of Southern Maine, University of New England and Maine College of Art students held a noontime rally in Monument Square across from City Hall, where more than 100 people voted Thursday, according to organizers. Colby College students were also shuttled to Waterville City Hall.
According to UMF campus organizer Jeanine Alberto, the Farmington group took almost 80 voters to the town office there. Exact voter numbers were not available Thursday evening.
Leanne Pinkham, registrar of voters in Farmington, said the event went “quite smoothly.”
“They’ve been very good,” she said of organizers who alerted her several days earlier. Despite the advance notice, however, she had time for little else, she said.
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