Dear Editor:

I’m puzzled at the strategy of the Republican backers of Question 1, coming before Maine voters in November. The ostensible purpose of the backers is to add a voter ID requirement for people who wish to vote in Maine elections, something that has never been required before.

The puzzle arises from the decision of the backers to lard up their proposal with additional provisions that have nothing to do with voter ID, but would add several new limiting conditions for absentee voting, which a large percentage of Maine voters, both Democratic and Republican, welcome and have used in recent elections. If voter ID is so essential to eliminate the fraud claimed to exist in our elections, why reduce the chances of passage by adding to the Question these other provisions, certain to be unpopular with the 45 percent of Mainers who voted absentee in the last presidential election. What were they thinking? Were they just being greedy? Or is absentee voting their real target, and voter ID a stalking horse?

Thomas Eichler

Wiscasset