John,
I have some good news – important news.
Success is within our grasp on the signature gathering phase of ranked choice voting. This is critical because it stops the Democrat’s attempt to put RCV in place for this year’s Presidential ballot. And, it gives us a shot at eliminating it for Presidential elections all together.
When we began our fight to repeal ranked choice voting for the Presidential election last January, we expected the Democrats and their big-money out of state backers would try to stop us, but we were confident that we could meet any challenge because of the importance of our fight and the dedication of you and our team.
We knew it would be a grind. We were prepared for Democratic Party and liberal groups to tell people not to sign our petition, and they have. We knew they would go further – and they did. They sued use in court trying to stop even the gathering of signatures.
On Super Tuesday in March, we had to walk into court and sue the City of Portland just to collect signatures in at polling locations like liberal groups had done for years. By early that afternoon, we had won, and we made up for lost time by calling supporters back to the polls and collecting thousands of signatures in the remaining hours the polls were open.
But then the pandemic and the Governor’s Executive Orders threw new and unexpected obstacles in our path. The Mills administration coronavirus dictates had made gathering signatures ALMOST impossible.
When Mills issued an executive order allowing almost all notarized documents to be done electronically, she specifically exempted the petitions we had to process.
Like every business, we have been hampered by having staff work from home and the limitations on the number of people, both staff and volunteers, we’re allowed to have in our office. But like many businesses and organizations, we worked to figure it out.
Hard work and perseverance – coupled with your support – is paying off.
Despite all of these obstacles, volunteers and activists continued to process the signatures they had collected. Slowly but surely they were sent in – thousands of them. Each week our piles grew higher and higher.
We developed a schedule of town office closures and availability so we could safely and accurately get petition signatures certified by election clerks.
Now, after weeks and weeks of legal work, our signature gatherers have been designated as essential workers as this work falls under the Constitutional requirements for an election effort. They are back and up and running, not just on the phone, but safely gathering petition signatures.
And, that’s not all. We have developed new creative – and safe – plans to gather more signatures in the coming weeks.
I am happy to report that right now, today, we are on the right trajectory and glide path to make this happen. Against overwhelming obstacles, if we can complete our plans we should have a victory of the signature gathering phase which will halt RCV for this year’s Presidential election and give us a shot at defeating it permanently on the ballot this fall.
A contribution to help us with postage, deliveries and new materials
here today will help us make it over the top.
Sincerely,
Dr. Demi Kouzounas
Chair
Maine Republican Party