WE NEED LETTERS TO EDITOR AND OP-EDS RIGHT NOW SUPPORTING RANKED CHOICE VOTING. PLEASE HELP.

[LBM20]

Thanks for all you have done to help secure the signatures for the People's Veto to restore Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). It was a great effort. Over 80,000 signatures, many collected in out there in sub zero temperatures, were submitted, 72,000 of which were already certified by local election officials. This far surpasses the 61,000 required. They were submitted on Feb. 2nd and are being verified by the Sec. of State's office now. It is highly unlikely that there will be a problem since so many more were collected than actually needed.

Now what we need to do is make sure that RCV is properly implemented, PER THE LAW, for the June primaries and that we win the June primary vote to restore RCV PERMANENTLY.

So it is GAME ON, and the forces against us on this issue are out there with OpEds and a narrative saying that using RCV for the June primaries will be "chaos." They are even saying it will be a "nightmare." This is their narrative, and they are very good at using scare tactics to try to frighten people away from RCV. And if we don't take control of the narrative and use effective messaging, they may well win.

I have now sent and have had published a number of letters to the editor in papers across the state supporting RCV and the People's Veto. I hope you will please join me.

You can go online to the Bangor Daily News, Kennebec Journal, Portland Press Herald, Mount Desert Islander, Ellsworth American, and others easily to submit Letters to the Editor and OpEds online.

Here are suggested talking points:

* Supporting this People's Veto to restore Ranked Choice Voting will send a clear message to Augusta that we are putting the brakes on them and stopping the very bad trend of them blocking ALL of our referendums. (THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE THING PEOPLE TALKED ABOUT WHEN WE WERE GATHERING SIGNATURES. THEY ARE FED UP WITH AUGUSTA BLOCKING NOT JUST RCV, BUT ALL OF THE REFERENDUMS. SOME IN AUGUSTA ARE NOW EVEN TRYING TO BLOCK MEDICAID EXPANSION WHICH PASSED WITH 59% OF THE VOTE.)

* RCV is completely constitutional for the primaries and general elections for the federal races and this is what the People's Veto restores.

* RCV is simple. It is used in Portland for their mayoral elections with no problem at all and in a number of other U.S. cities and countries around the world.

* The only "chaos" will be if a major party candidate for governor or congress wins with just around 20% of the vote which is very likely unless we have RCV for the primaries.

* The Sec. of State has had since November 2016 to prepare to implement RCV for the primaries, and his office has plenty of time to do this and he has said repeatedly that he can do it.

* RCV empowers voters with more voice and more choice.

* RCV ends the spoiler effect vote splitting and restores majority rule.

Thanks very much. I hope you can help. Our very democracy in Maine depends on it. LePage and many in his camp are waging ware on the entire referendum process. THEY MUST BE STOPPED. Passing the People's Veto to Restore Ranked Choice Voting in June is the ONE chance we have to send a very clear message to them that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and that we are not going to allow them to attack our constitutional right to direct democracy.