We did it!

The City Clerk confirmed on Tuesday what our volunteers knew a long time ago:  our legal resident voting petition is heading to the ballot on November 2. 

Check out some news coverage here, here, and here.

This journey began two years ago.  The League of Young Voters had a dream to make the largest city in Maine more fair and more democratic.  We wanted to give a political voice to everyone that was a legal resident of Portland.  We worked to get a Charter Commission started, the first step in changing our city's constitution.  Our volunteers worked to get solution-oriented Charter Commissioners elected.  In February, the Commission began talking about legal resident voting in earnest.  Dozens of immigrants turned out to hearings on the issue.  Then in March, all seemed lost.  The Commission voted against legal resident voting 7-5.

As the State Director of the League, I suggested that we do more community education on the issue and try to tackle expanding voting rights in coming years.  I got a resounding "no way" from our crowd.  League volunteers and, just as importantly, representatives of the immigrant community, would have none of the "wait until next year" plan.  They were heartened that 5 of the 9 elected Charter Commissioners voted yes on this issue.  The media was carrying the story.  The immigrant community was fired up.  The community was getting behind us on the issue. 

On March 22, our Voting Rights Now petition drive was launched.  We needed to get 4,487 signatures of registered Portland voters--20% of the people that voted in the last gubernatorial election to put legal resident voting on the ballot.  To put that number in perspective, an independent running for governor needs to collect 4,000 signatures and has all 419 towns in the state to draw from.  We could only have Portland registered voters!  One city!  We needed one out of every eight voters in the city to sign the petition.

Undaunted, our volunteers took to the streets.  Leaguers carrying clipboards sprung up at farmers markets, concerts, coffee shops, and parks.  Where ever people congregated, our volunteers were there.  Most importantly, 24 volunteers arranged their work schedules so they could donate their time on primary day, June 8th.  We collected 2,400 signatures in one day!

On July 14th we turned in 5,110 signatures--hoping enough would be verified.  I took a long-needed vacation.  On the car ride back from a weekend camping in Baxter State Park, I got a call from Linda Cohen, Portland's City Clerk.  We were short 263 signatures.  That was the bad news.  The good news was that we had a 10 day grace period to get more signatures.

Twenty more volunteers stepped to the plate.  We knew we needed at least 400 signatures to get 263 valid ones.  It was sudden death overtime.  Once again, League volunteers came through, collecting 530 signatures in 10 days.  We turned them in on August 9th.

A day later, Linda called again.  This time, we made it--we had enough signatures.  Whew! 

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the volunteers that made this happen.

Now the real work begins.  We look forward to having a real community dialogue on this issue now that it's on the ballot.  Our amendment is tough and fair--it says if you are legally living in Portland and can prove it, you get a say in what goes on here.  We could set a tremendous precedent for the rest of Maine. 

If you're looking forward to volunteering, on this campaign, whether you live in Portland or not, let me know.  The more the merrier.  If you'd like to make a donation to support the campaign, click here.

Cheers, 
-- Will Everitt
Maine State Director
League of Young Voters
142 High Street, Suite 302
Portland, Maine 04101
207.772.3207
www.theleague.com/me
www.twitter.com/MaineLeague