Yesterday I stood with over a hundred volunteers to deliver 68,064 validated signatures to the Secretary of State's office to restore same day voter registration. It was an amazing moment. More than 1,000 volunteers gathered signatures from every House and Senate district in the state. It was a homegrown effort with no outside paid signature firms as other efforts have used in the past. Ben Chin, who led the field efforts for the campaign, calculated that the campaign gathered a signature every 15 seconds. The Secretary of State has 30 days to certify the signatures, which have already been validated by the town clerks. Only 57,277 signatures are needed to actually qualify for the November ballot.
We have a lot of work to do in the coming months. Our opponents will use all the dirty tricks in the book including false accusations to try to move us backwards to a time when fewer people could vote. But based on my experience with the signature gathering effort, more Mainers believe that voting is a fundamental constitutional right that shouldn't be denied to anyone. Donate to the campaign at www.protectmainevotes.com.
