The 2012 “Voter’s Guide” compiled by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters is encyclopedic and totally impartial. In contrast, the one below is fraught with bias. However, for purposes of brevity, it lists only the four most important choices local voters must make, and conveniently does so in ascending order of significance.

 4. Maine Congressional District 1: Despite approval ratings in the neighborhood of 10 percent, there won’t be any significant changes in the makeup of Congress. Forget all the angry “Throw the bums out!” rhetoric; no American can legally vote against any more than two of the 535 “bums” (100 senators and 435 U.S. representatives) in any election year, and on top of that, the fundraising playing field is so tilted in favor of incumbents that unseating one is a Herculean and often impossible task. The good news is that Chellie Pingree, who has represented Maine’s 1st Congressional District with dedication, conviction and passion for two terms, is running for a third one. She deserves to get it.

3. The Presidency: The sad truth is the partisan gridlock that’s paralyzed America in general and Washington in particular for the past generation isn’t changing anytime soon, regardless of who is elected commander in chief next month. As Congressional Republicans have demonstrated so adeptly for the past four years, it’s not hard to tie the hands of a sitting president. And until such time as one party or the other wins both the White House and veto-proof majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives (a horrific but highly unlikely possibility), the president of the United States is doomed to reign largely as a figurehead while simultaneously serving as a lightning rod for shrill, non-stop, vitriolic criticism from those temporarily out of power who differ with any of the chief executive’s purported views on, in no particular order, the economy, national security, immigration, unions, abortion, the deficit, foreign policy, same-sex marriage, the environment, gun control and whichever professional sport is being threatened by a lockout and/or strike.

President Barack Obama has made inroads toward healing a country crippled by eight years of the previous administration’s ineptitude and dishonesty, and despite numerous politically motivated roadblocks, willfully thrown in his way, the economy is slowly stabilizing. On top of that, Obama’s opponent has demonstrated no particular commitment to anything, aside from doing or saying whatever it takes in order to get himself elected president. In order to secure his party’s nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has pandered to a significant number of deep-pocketed extremists motivated far more by greed and lust for power than by actual love for their country and/or most of its citizens.

In addition, Romney’s unusually privileged background is eerily similar to that of the current president’s immediate predecessor, an inarticulate empty suit whose policies dumped the nation into the morass Obama has been dealing with for the past four years. Romney’s running mate is a camera-friendly but integrity-challenged ideologue who cannot even tell the truth about his personal-best marathon time. The top of the Republican ticket is long on ambition and entitlement, but woefully short on sincerity and any specific plans regarding how they’ll improve America for anyone but its wealthiest 1 percent.

2. U.S. Senate: Sending a Democrat or a Republican to Washington to fill the retiring Olympia Snowe’s seat would, in all likelihood, merely help perpetuate the bureaucratic constipation that’s crippling government. Fortunately, Maine has an electable, independent senatorial candidate who has demonstrated the ability to work in a bipartisan manner. He’s also beholden to far fewer folks than are his two major party opponents. Sending a true independent to Washington will convey a message to the Beltway elite, and with a little luck to the nation as well. Former Gov. Angus King is by far the best choice for the United States Senate.

1. Maine Ballot Question 1: Fifty years from now, same-sex marriage is likely to be viewed the same way inter-faith and/or interracial unions are seen today by open-minded individuals: As a non-issue. Some maintain allowing gays to marry would somehow threaten “traditional marriage,” but it’s more likely that keeping it illegal does far more harm than good. How many unhealthy and/or failed marriages began as a result of one or both partners trying, as a result of societal pressures, to be someone he or she is not? And how are children of such arrangements affected when those unions inevitably and often unhappily break down? Those desperately looking for proof that allowing same-sex couples to wed will negatively impact the quality of anyone else’s life should call off their search; no such evidence exists. Maine voters have the unique opportunity to lead the way toward meaningful, progressive, long-lasting social change, and should do so by voting “Yes” on Question 1.

— Andy Young works in York County and lives in Cumberland County. His voter’s guide, unlike the one put out by the League of Women Voters (www.lwvme.org/elections.html), is not impartial, but all bias contained in it are his own, and weren’t paid for by any SuperPACs.