Dear Editor:

Our corrupt and partisan supreme court has gutted the long standing Voting Rights Act of 1965, an act that made it possible for millions of voters to go to the polls who had been previously denied. This ruling has opened the door to racially motivated gerrymandering across the south. The effectiveness of racial gerrymandering is most evident in Texas where whites make up only 40% of the population yet over 60% of their congressional delegation is white.

The GOP, a party bereft of good ideas on how to govern and has had difficulty winning the popular vote, turns to rigging elections through gerrymandering and creating barriers to voting.

The Freedom to Vote Act addresses many issues with our election campaigns and voting, including gerrymandering and campaign finance reform. It has been adopted by the House but stalled in the Senate thanks in a large part to Senator Collins in one of her many silent filibusters. She claims that the Act would interfere with “states rights.”

Speaking from the other side of her mouth Senator Collins voiced support for the “SAVE” Act. In a breathtaking overreach of Federal constitutional authority, the “SAVE” Act does several things, none of which assures a free or fair election. It not only creates barriers for voters in requiring proof of citizenship, it also eliminates mail-in ballots, and, most troubling, requires states to verify voters against a federal database. This last item gives the federal government the potential to challenge any voter anywhere. On a state level, GOP has played dirty pool with voting list purges resulting in the denial of the voting rights of thousands.

The GOP has been severed from the roots that made it so grand in its founding and has drifted into a morass of corruption and lust for power worthy of a Mafia Don. Senator Collins, more interested in her political career than the needs of the people of the state she represents, bends with the shiftless winds of the politics of her party. The time is long past for Senator Collins to retire from office.

Fred W. Nehring
Boothbay