Cheers and jeers from around the news:

• Cheers to the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition for proving, once again, the ability of political candidates to equivocate the unequivocal.

The MFOIC asked candidates to pledge their support, at every opportunity, for the people’s “inherent right to know and be fully informed about their government so that they can efficiently and intelligently exercise their political power.” Seems cut-and-dried to us.

Yet only 40 percent of Senate candidates and 24 percent of House candidates signed.

Excuses abounded, some good, some not-so-good.

We can understand forgetting to drop it in the mail. Or losing it among paperwork piles. It happens often.

But no candidate should have found fault with the question.

It wasn’t seeking support of anything controversial. It was nonpartisan. It asked lawmakers, if elected, to uphold and strengthen the public’s right to know what is happening in government.

Some of the reasons for not signing the pledge seemed to indicate this support is conditional.

We strongly feel it is not.

• Cheers to the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee for investigating oversight of no-bid contracts between the state and public colleges.

The Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability, which was almost cut last year, has raised questions whether taxpayers are getting maximum value from these contracts.

Beyond the need to find efficiencies in tough economic times, this effort highlights the great value of having an agency that sniffs into the corners where they might be found. OPEGA does good work.

As the state mulls cuts anew, it should be preserved.

• Jeers to hunters who don’t follow the law or show poor etiquette. Today is the first day of the deer hunt, and for calls from landowners to complain about hunters traipsing across posted property or failing to ask permission to hunt.

Hunters should know where hunting is disallowed, and where – like in Lewiston, for example – the boundaries between the two zones where firearm discharges are allowed and disallowed.

(West of the transmission lines and Grove Street, and east of the Maine Turnpike is the rough outer area where hunting is allowed; everything else inside Lewiston proper is not.)

Responsible hunting means being safe. But it also means being respectful.

And, always, it means wearing blaze orange.

• And cheers to all ballot clerks, election wardens and all voting volunteers who are providing an under appreciated community service this Tuesday. Turnout will be high. So will stress (especially in Lewiston, the city of consolidated polling places).

The volunteers manning the polls deserve applause. It’s a difficult job.

When voting this Tuesday, don’t forget to thank them.