FARMINGTON – Mt. Blue TV will be live streaming Congressman-elect Jared Golden on the show Talkin’ Maine with Tom Saviello. The show will be recorded Friday, Dec. 21 at 9 a.m. and will be available on their channel 11 and on their website.
The live stream video will be shown on Mt. Blue TV’s website and on their Facebook page.
MBTV also live streams the Farmington and Wilton Selectboard meetings every Tuesday night. MBTV is continuing to also put all of their content on their website and on Bee Line Cable’s channel 11.
Click here to check out MBTV’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MBTV11/
MBTV’s studio is located on the ground floor in Roberts Learning Center on the campus of University of Maine at Farmington.
Watch all of MBTV’s content free on demand anytime at: mtbluetv.org Also, be sure to like us on Facebook
Do they take calls from the public during the show or just what Saviello asks ?
Facebook is a time toilet, Mt. Blue shouldn’t promote its use.
More fake news being spread. Definitely won’t be watching. Can’t believe my tax dollars are going for this propaganda!
I agree Billybob I got rid of fakebook a few years ago because of the bull involved. At least three times a week I have a pop up on my phone screen asking me to enter my password for the app fakebook. You can’t get rid of these scum bags. Their now all through the news again for sharing private information. What else would we expect from a guy who is a thief and money wh*_+.
I wonder if Jared Golden will be wearing his first runner up ribbon. What a shame our system has come down to this.
Eddie, we’ll never know for sure but I suspect Golden would have won a “traditional” election. Most of the independents attracted more liberal voters who only voted independent first because they knew that their second vote for Golden would be what counted. This system frees people to vote for independents, greens, LIbertarians and others. If it had not been rank choice, most of those voters would have strategically voted for Golden because they wouldn’t want to waste their vote.
I like how they are moving forward even though the results are being highly contested and a law suit is pending. NOT!
FYI – Mt. Blue Community Access TV is a non-profit organization that receives our primary funding through cable franchise fees from the towns of Farmington and Wilton, paid by the cable subscribers. These fees only cover about 80 percent of MBTV’s annual operating budget. The rest of our funding is from generous sponsorships from local businesses. Our funding does not in any way come from the citizen’s property taxes.
Talkin’ Maine is also available on our website’s streaming page. http://mtbluetv.org/program-live-stream-index.html This will be Tom’s 300th show!!
Thanks for all the comments!
JP Fortier
Executive Director
How can anyone say” This system frees people to vote for independents, greens, LIbertarians and others” with a straight face? Voting should be taken seriously. Saying people can now vote for a candidate who has no chance because their second vote can be the real one that counts is absurd. Basically your saying they get to game the system and force the taxpayers to foot the bill for a second or third or fourth count and not change the outcome. I like so many other Americans, take my right to vote seriously. I look at the candidates and use my best judgement to determine the ONE who will best represent me. But if a change in the centuries old method that has worked very well is needed, then Lets have a real run off. Not this BS of second votes for the voters who don’t have enough strength in their convictions to pick a candidate.
Eddie, I disagree with you. I like the idea that I can choose my first choice and make that statement, knowing I’m not wasting a vote. I think a lot of people like that, which is why people voted for this style of voting – it fits with Maine’s embrace of independent candidates. No one is gaming the system or costing the taxpayers a lot more money. You may like a plurality system, but you’re being arrogant if you think your opinion is the CORRECT one and anyone who thinks differently can’t be taken seriously. That’s the problem today – people seem to want to assume that positions other than their own are illegitimate.
Single Transferable Voting systems are used in many places around the world (that’s the technical name for what here gets called ranked choice voting). Other places use more expensive runoff elections. You can vote the way you want, and consider the candidates in the way you want, but others may have a different process. And that’s OK – and ultimately, Maine voters choose the system in use.
Some voters voted Poliquin as 1st, 2nd. 3rd, and 4th choice. I suppose to be emphatic of their choice. Ballot clerks threw these votes out or did not count them, as they supposedly weren’t legal. A local clerk told me of this.My concern is how many voters in how many towns did this apparently confused about “the rules” and how many votes weren’t counted statewide? Costing much additional expense and a loss to the incumbent are perhaps going to be the results of RCV. The first probably wasn’t intended or expected, the second I’m not so sure about.
Actually all the people of Maine did not approve RCV. The people in the 1st District approved it, the 2nd District did not approve it, but we are outnumbered by the city folks in CD1. And now it gets used to throw a 2nd District election, even though the 2nd District didn’t want it to begin with.
Bob Millay if they did that, then we really got duped. They were not supposed to consider the later choices as long as the first choice was still in the race. If someone put Poliquin as a first choice, that vote is still good because he’s still in the race. The 2nd choice and beyond has no bearing because first choice is still in. Some voters refuse to vote for other candidates, which should not eliminate their vote until their first (maybe only) vote is out of the race.
So much for answers. Anyway !! I will give Golden the same benefit of doubt as the governor elect. I don’t see it panning out well for us but we shall see. Bob you have a point this RCV crap costs a lot more than a run off people should have seen this after the primaries.
@Scott Erb…”I suspect Golden would have won a “traditional” election”. If that was the case I could live with that but I can’t live with the “untraditional” way he won.
Scott, you are wasting a vote and People’s time. The difference now is you, and others like you get to vote twice. And your second choice is equal to your first. That’s wrong. Not my opinion, that’s based on centuries of voting in THIS country. If the people of the second district wanted this, we would have voted for it. If peoples referendums were required to gather signatures statewide, instead of only in the cites, we may not even be having this conversation. The system wasn’t broken, we have elected candidates from both sides by plurality for a 100 years.you win some you lose some but it worked out. When my side lost I never thought we should change the rules I just advocated for better candidates.
Looks to me that Tom Saviello is looking for work.
The United States Constitution allows the individual states wide latitude on how they conduct their elections for members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. If you are not clever enough to fill out a ballot with your first, second, third, etc choices and mature enough to accept the results of the election then there is no way to fix that.
I voted for Bruce on the front of my ballot. I didn’t do the rank choice vote . This is how it should be ! PERIOD ! Golden did not win in my eyes and many others as well. Our beautiful state is going to be in trouble financially once again because of this ridiculous decision.
@ one vote, you really want to know what’s a ridiculous decision? That would be the CMP corridor. Any one get any kind of vote on that one?
In 2016 Trump received less votes than Hillary Clinton by 2,864,974. He still became president based off of the electoral votes. When you agree to the terms of the race, prior to the election results, you need to be able to accept the outcome.
Mr. Golden is our congressman-elect in Congressional District 2. I’m sure he’ll do a great job.
Get over it angry people who want things their own way, all the time. Elections have consequences and RCV was voted on as a result of the election (for the record, I was against RCV). Just because you don’t like the outcome does not mean it is illegitimate.
I was not happy about Comrade Trump, aka the Manchurian Candidate, winning but I had to accept it.
The problem in politics these days is that no one looks at the results and recognizes that the difference between first and second is very thin and in a Democracy, that means compromise is necessary. If you win by a small margin, it is not a mandate from the masses. It means that almost half the voters did not agree with your campaign. Democracy is government for all, not a small group.
People are too rigid and absolute. We need compromise, Only in dictatorships like Russia do we such absolutism. The Constitution intends for people to compromise.
Eddie, nobody is voting twice. This is a perfectly legitimate system, used here and abroad. It’s not costing anyone money (and a run off would be a lot more expensive). Note: I voted against ranked choice voting in the referendum because I don’t like adding complexity to voting. But once the people approved it, I accepted it because that’s how democracy works. A good point was made above about how by your own logic the electoral college system that elected Donald Trump President when got less votes than CLinton violated one person one vote. And I do not at all believe that ballots were rejected if someone voted for the same person on each choice. That’s the kind of “argument by rumor” that often riles people up, but nothing’s there.
And it doesn’t work against either major party – it simply makes it possible for people to express a preference for independents, libertarians, greens or others, without having to “waste their vote.” But hey – get it on the ballot again – I suspect we’ll see another referendum question, asking to reverse ranked choice voting. If you lose that too, then accept it. And if you win and we go back to plurality, people should accept that. Read the judge’s explanation on why this isn’t unconstitutional – and the Judge was appointed by President Trump.
Congrats Jared! I’m sure you’ll do a great job for the Maine people.. I wish you all the luck you’ll need… It’s time for Mr Poliquin to bow out!
Same guy,new and improved name. “Reality” nailed it!!! The only chance is to resort to the Gerrymander without which there would only be 3 republicans in Congress,all from the deep south. Where the intelligent,educated folks are concentrated.
@Scott Erb
You can’t say ranked choice voting DOESN’T work against either party! Are you serious . It absolutely did and it’s decided who won this past election. If we didn’t have it Maine people would have head to endure all this BS and went with the first vote and winner and that was Bruce .
Ranked choice does not inherently work against either big party. In this case the Democrat won, but one can imagine an election where a popular Libertarian gets the first vote and the second votes go to a Republican. The only winners are the independents and small parties that now can ask people to vote for them without wasting their vote. It is wrong to think this is something that in principle will benefit the Democrats most of the time.
If we had national ranked choice voting in the 1992 election, George H.W. Bush would have probably beaten Bill Clinton. That’s because the third party candidate – Ross Perot – took more votes from Bush than he did from Clinton. And if you don’t like this result – don’t worry, in two years there is another election!
Pretty easy to figure out. I will type this slow for those who seem to be having trouble. If you get a ballot and get more than one vote on the same race, that is more than one vote. Two is still more than one no matter how you do the math. The electoral college is based on the individual votes of the people represented by the electors. If we didn’t have that, the problem we have with being out voted by southern Maine would be a Nationwide event. The population centers would dictate the laws for all. Totally different.
Eddie, the Judge ruled clearly here and elsewhere – just because you put your second or third choice does NOT mean you get more than one vote. ONLY ONE VOTE IS COUNTED PER PERSON! Is that clear to you. Nobody gets more than one vote. Stating preferences does not mean voting more than once. This isn’t even controversial, nobody can say anyone gets more than one vote, that is clearly an inaccurate statement.
You also miss the point about the electoral college – it clearly is NOT one vote per person, because some people’s votes count for more than others. That’s OK – it’s how the system is set up. Whining about a system because your side loses (and yes, many Democrats have done so about the electoral college) is lame. Too much whining in this country, in my opinion. I support both the electoral college and ranked choice voting (even though I originally voted against it). It worked more smoothly and with virtually no chaos and confusion, so I think Maine voters were smart to approve it.
Still pretty simple first choice= 1 vote. If that person doesn’t get enough votes 2nd choice= second vote and so on and so on. Because one judge agrees doesn’t make it right. Have strength in your convictions. Pick a candidate and stand by him or her. If you don’t understand why we have the electoral college and how it works to ensure that each state in our republic has equal representation, then maybe you should research it. It was and still is a great system. Remember we are a republic not a democracy. That’s why plurality not majority was the law of the land.
Scott if your first vote is for someone who doesn’t get enough votes, your second vote is then counted. Meaning you just got to vote twice in the same race. Is that clear? Basic math. One vote plus another vote equals two votes.
Justin, only one vote is counted. You get only one vote. You give your PREFERENCES in ranked choice voting, you don’t vote multiple times. Sheesh. You guys are in denial, a judge has ruled on this both here in Maine and in other states. You are simply wrong. Eddie, I said I supported the electoral college, I don’t know why you claim I “don’t understand” it. Again, you guys are wrong here, and you seem to have a lot of trouble admitting it.
Finally – we are a democracy and a Republic. They are not mutually exclusive. The term “democracy” in the field of political philosophy is NOT the same as crude majoritarianism. By modern definitions it is indeed proper to call the US a democracy. And you can have a Republic with run off voting, ranked choice voting, or a myriad of other systems. There is absolutely NOTHING about being a Republic which requires plurality voting – indeed, most Republics do not have plurality voting.
And if my first and only vote is for a candidate that doesn’t make the first cut, then my vote isn’t counted at all. I’m disenfranchised. The final so called majority doesn’t even acknowledge my vote or others like mine. So how can it be a majority if it doesn’t count ALL the votes cast? Oh that’s right because if i don’t vote twice I run the risk of my ONE vote not being counted. Not denial basic math.
If the bad guy won the sore losers would be happy. If the electoral college ever goes against them they will demand its repeal. Merry Christmas!
Put a lot of thought into that statement did you Mr. Firsching?
Justin, If you vote for someone who doesn’t make the cut, your vote is irrelevant anyway. It serves no practical purpose. However, people could and did read on the night of the election that Bond had 6% of the vote, and Hoar had 2%. That’s exactly what people would have read if it had been a plurality vote (except it would have been less than 6 and 2% as people would have been afraid to waste a vote). So people do see how many votes the independents got either way.
This system of voting is called a “Single Transferable Vote” system. That means each person gets one vote, and they can, IF THEY WISH, choose to allow it to transfer to another should their candidate be eliminated. It is one vote per person. If a vote doesn’t count in the second round, that’s the choice of the voter.
But this is my last response, you all can have the last word. Disagree as many of us might on politics, I wish you a happy, joyous and wonderful Christmas, and am thankful that we live in a country where we can openly disagree on something like this, and we don’t have to worry that any of us will be locked up or attacked because of our political views. Merry Christmas!
I’m sick and tired of 1st district voters dictating what happens in the 2nd district. I’m moving to Florida with Gov. LePage.
@Scott Erb….More liberal double-speak.