We all want our favorite candidate to win. But I like to think that in our heart of hearts, we want our democracy to operate fairly. We want our elected official to represent the majority of the voters. This trusting of the majority — however frail and limited its wisdom  — is our cornerstone belief.

Our country and our state are not set up for three-party elections. For such elections to be fair, whenever no candidate has a clear majority, there needs to be a runoff election between the two frontrunners. I hope that we can rectify this omission on both levels soon.

Eliot Cutler, according to a recent poll, has 16 percent of the vote. Only the arrival of game-changing new information — a highly unlikely event — between now and the election, could allow Mr. Cutler to win. Therefore I call on him as a practical man, to withdraw his candidacy and free his supporters to make a new choice. This will allow our present system of elections to give us a fair outcome.

I don't know much about Eliot Cutler, although I voted for him in the last gubernatorial election. But I trust he is not a rigid ideologue, nor an unrepentant egotist. I trust he has no wish to be a spoiler, someone who, without a chance himself, stays in the race simply to spoil the outcome.

Jory Squibb lives in Camden