The 15th Amendment establishes the “one-person, one-vote” rights of all Americans. The Equal Protection Clause states that “one person’s voting power ought to roughly be equivalent to another’s within a state.” These hard and fast rules have carried us through 230-plus years of growth and prosperity. We have been a world leader in commerce, finance, freedom, and equality.

Now the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting would have you believe that it we are not smart enough to pick our own leadership. They want to put forth a system so convoluted that no one will know how to vote or who they end up voting for in the end.

The process is as follows: You vote on a ballot that allows you to rank candidates. If there is a majority winner, it is over. However, if there is no majority winnter, they drop the least favorite. That candidate’s votes go to the second on their list. This process is shaken and stirred until someone gets a majority vote, thus giving “losers” votes to create “winners.”

This is tantamount to having a teacher let you give a “rank choice” of answers to an exam and you get to be wrong over and over again, not really learning anything. This system is based on the fickleness of voters, not the ability or qualifications of a candidate. What could go wrong?

Let the people of Maine vote for one person with one vote. Let’s be a state of the people of the Constitution.

Diane Vernesoni

Wiscasset