Dear Common Cause Activist,

What would you say if I told you we could have a system of voting where you had the power to rank the candidates in order of preference? Your new power would ensure the people of Maine could hold their governor accountable and have a true majority winner even while having real choices.

Never again would you could be afraid that voting for your preferred candidate would lead to your least favorite candidate getting elected. Basically, there would be no more voting for "the lesser of two evils".

We in Maine could have this system in the future if you take action today.

The system often is called Instant Run-off Voting, and sometimes Ranked Choice Voting. But this year in Maine it is LD 585 - and we need our legislators to hear that there is widespread support for this proposal.

Please call your legislators today to tell them to support LD 585.

You can find contact information for your legislators here: http://janus.state.me.us/house/townlist.htm.

Instant Run-off Voting allows voters to vote their hopes, not their fears. With IRV, voters can more accurately show who they support in races with more than two candidates. It eliminates the "spoiler problem" where a candidate with a minority of support among voters is elected because two or more candidates with similar stands split the vote of their supporters.

It is a system that can bring together backers like John McCain and Barack Obama, Howard Dean and Ralph Nader, because it's a win-win solution to how our system breaks down when more than two people run for office.

Much more information about IRV can be found by visiting http://www.fairvote.org/irv.

This particular legislation would only institute IRV for future races for Governor. We could do it for low cost by doing a hand count for the second round of counting, just as the Vermont Secretary of State and the North Carolina elections chief are planning in their states.

It's simple, it's something we can afford, and it's very good for democracy.

Please call today!

Yours,

Jon Bartholomew
Common Cause Maine