In one of the more eye-catching laws passed by Maine’s new Legislature, the terrible voting mess the Republicans have courageously exposed will be cleaned up. Henceforth, careless, improvident, forgetful or otherwise undesirable inhabitants would no longer be able to register to vote on Election Day. On Nov. 8 Maineiacs will reconsider the law when they decide whether to scuttle this legislative masterpiece.

Lucius Flatley and the coffee-shop gang discussed the smoke signals emitted by the state chairman of the Republican Party and the new secretary of state supporting this new law. These pioneers of rectitude believe that fraudulent voters have been speeding between voting booths throughout the Pine Tree State in order to discombobulate the election process – and they have developed a full-blown case of the wobblies concerning the dismal fate that faces Maine if the law is overthrown.

The Maine Legislature is to be commended for its dedication to good government. Ever since 1877, when national Republicans abandoned reconstruction efforts in the old Confederacy in a trade to make the minority Rutherford Hayes president – a trait further demonstrated a generation or so later when party leaders courageously denied the notorious Teddy Roosevelt another shot at the presidency, and reaching a crescendo with that great crusader for clean campaigns, Richard Nixon – campaign and election fairness has long been the hallmark of the GOP. When, a couple of years ago, nearby New Hampshire Republican officials went to jail rather than permit the Granite State to be sullied with an unseemly number of Democratic votes, it was only putting a New England shine on the elephant’s traditional concern for chasteness in contests.

Even though 30 years of polling records were painstakingly pored over in such cesspools of civic crime as Meddybemps, Hiram, Paris, Orono, Lewiston/Auburn and, above all, Portland, the research of political sleuths in uncovering past Maine malfeasance was not terribly productive, Sadly, in the past 30 years of voting records, although tens of thousands of citizens have registered and voted on Election Days for 30 years, the scholarly sleuths found only one doubtful vote.

It appears that this law can be compared with the Sherlock Holmes case of “the dog that never barked.” Call it the law of “the voter who never cheated.”

Nevertheless, these scholars of virtue just know that it exists. Saying it is impossible to prove a negative (whatever that means), these gentlemen believe that silence demonstrates a possibility of fraud so widespread as to be like the weather – something that is normal and expected.

The Republican statesmen who created this law believe that those who cannot be relied on to exercise their franchise properly – e.g., immature young fumblers, the erratic thinkers, the elderly, the slovenly, the handicapped, the truly remote, the traveler and the naturally crooked (and certainly, most Democrats) – may expect further restrictions in the future. It seems likely that this thoughtful legislation will be followed in the next Republican Legislature by a photo ID for voting. Just one more step in the Republican advance toward clean politics.

If the fears of Maine’s two partners-in-excitement – the secretary and the chairman – are grounded, this law may be compared to the brilliantly conceived poll tax that kept so many undesirables from voting for so many years throughout the old Confederacy. It should prevent future malefactors of the very worst kind from practicing their vile malfeasances in the Pine Tree State.

These champions should be awarded the Anthony Comstock Medal for Moral Virtue.

Devil’s Dictionary quote

Vote: The instrument and symbol of a free man’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

Rodney Quinn, a former Maine secretary of state, lives in Gorham. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.