The headline on John Frary’s commentary of Oct. 16, “Right to register not same as right to vote,” is true.

And without registering, you cannot vote.

Right-wing Republicans are using every means possible to prevent our citizens from voting with unfounded accusations and insinuations of fraud regarding same-day registration.

While we’re anxiously waiting for the ruling party to work on job creation, they are spending months investigating something that doesn’t exist.

They came up with zero fraud.

Not allowing voters to register within the last four days before election day is like the Internal Revenue Service telling taxpayers they cannot file their tax returns from April 11 to April 15 — that they’re too busy to help them with their questions on those days.

Ninety-nine percent of registrars would rather work a little harder and/or hire an extra worker on Nov. 8 so citizens have every chance to vote.

Patricia Brochu of Old Town found it a burden and assumed large numbers of students would show up to register. So she took it upon herself to limit voter registration.

Maine citizens have a proud record of being one of the top voter participation states in the country. Unfortunately, Brochu thought it was better to prevent townspeople from voting than to spend an extra $100 or $200 for additional help.

Please, let’s not allow these people to chip away at our voting rights. Vote yes on Question 1 to repeal this unnecessary requirement to register by the previous Thursday before election.

William Fleming

Augusta

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