While showing a picture ID at the polls sounds like a reasonable request, the Voter ID question that will appear on Maine’s ballot in November will make voting more difficult in Maine by attaching additional limits on our right to vote. Maine’s nonpartisan League of Women Voters states that it’s “one of the most restrictive voter ID requirements in the country.”

In spite of Republicans’ best efforts to convince us otherwise, actual voter fraud is nearly nonexistent. Frank LaRose, Ohio’s Republican secretary of state in 2022 stated that “voter fraud continues to be exceedingly rare.” It rarely occurs on a scale that would affect the outcome of an election.

In Maine, impersonating another person to cast a ballot is a Class C crime, punishable by a maximum penalty of $5,000 fine and five years in jail. How many people would actually risk that for one vote?

If the question passes in November, it would exclude a number of currently accepted IDs, would repeal ongoing absentee voting that allows a voter to have an absentee ballot mailed to them automatically for each election, limits the number of absentee ballot drop boxes, makes it’s impossible to request an absentee ballot over the phone and prevents an authorized third party from delivering an absentee ballot, a service many elderly and disabled Mainers rely on. It also requires a team of bipartisan election officials to collect ballots from ballot boxes.

The question on our ballots in November isn’t about the integrity of our elections, it’s about limiting the numbers who will be able to cast a ballot. This is the only way Republicans can win elections now, as the policies the Republican party promotes are unpopular with majorities of Americans.

Mary Ann Larson

Bangor