Why Are Maine Ballot Questions So Painfully Hard To Understand?

You practically have to be a lawyer to understand Question 1.

You know exactly what I'm talking about. It's almost election/voting time again, and here we are faced with yet another ballot question that pretty much leaves us all stumped. I know I have my personal feeling about the CMP corridor, but for the life of me, I think I need an interpreter to figure out if I vote yes or no.

You ride around town, see all the signs and I personally wonder just how many people can tell which way they're supposed to vote, based on what they see. But then you go and look up the referendum question online, and it reads like a major label record contract. Confusing barely begins to cover it.

Mainers are smart, but we also know when we smell a rat.

The thing that always kills me is the wording. It always sounds like voting yes is no, and voting no is yes. Do they basically hope to confuse the crap out of people and get them to vote against their own desire? I mean, the answer seems pretty obvious. And people wonder why there's so much distrust of the government?!

This has been going on for dozens of years. I get legal stuff has to be included, but there's got to be a way to simplify it all for regular folks. I shouldn't need a friggin' decoder ring to get the job done in the voting booth. But here we are again, grabbing the dictionary to figure out which way to vote.

Short answer, it all breaks down like this....

If you DON'T want the CMP corridor, vote yes. See what I mean? When on Earth do answer yes to things you don't want. On Question 2, all about infrastructure, no means no. Thank God! that's not too hard, right?! Ugh. And on Question 3, same deal. Yes means yes, no means no, according to Ballotpedia.com.

But ALWAYS on the hot-button issues, it seems like they're always designed the opposite way. It's bullcrap. So there's your quick breakdown if you're wondering which way to go on the questions. I don't give a horse's patooty what your choices are, but you should be able to make your choice without the drama.

Whoever writes those questions needs a lesson in being able to be understood. Amirite?!