Ranked-choice voting is far superior to the old voting system, in which the candidate with the largest minority won.

Under the old voting system, when Mike Michaud and Eliot Cutler ran against Paul LePage, LePage won because Michaud and Cutler split the popular vote.

Ranked-choice voting gives the voter more choices. Candidates, to compete, have to raise the level of conversation — a conversation that, before RCV, served mostly to divide, distract, bamboozle and dumb the public down. Now, instead of gabbling about polls, personalities and campaign strategies, the voters can, at last, examine issues, policies and (gasp!) voting records.

Like the citizen’s referendum, ranked-choice voting, in effect, shifts power from the extremes to the center, from the minority to the majority, from the rich, the powerful and the connected, to the people — where that power belongs.

Junior-grade journalists complain loudly about the lack of civility in politics. How about the lack of truth? Or pith? Or common sense?

Some scribblers worry devoutly about the “tyranny of the majority.” Well, how does the tyranny of the minority sound? Does anyone like being the indentured servant of corporate interests?

Ranked-choice voting is an attempt to stop what’s left of this republic from swirling down the toilet.

To oppose ranked-choice voting is to oppose democracy. It’s like denying a most basic right of citizenship.

If people don’t like their rights, just ignore them. They’ll go away.

Steve Turner, Mechanic Falls

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