They say talk is cheap.

But "public comment" – well, you're going to need your checkbook for that.

Last week, Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap put out the call for submissions to this fall's Maine's Citizen's Guide to the Referendum Election.

No, he's not looking for more ballot questions – assuming the people's veto of Maine's same-sex marriage law passes the 55,087-signature threshold between now and early August – we will have five referendums crowding the Nov. 3 ballot.

Rather, the Secretary of State's Office is now accepting up to six "public comments" – three for and three against – for each referendum. To earn a slot, you must not exceed 300 words, adhere to a long list of instructions and be careful to avoid typos and grammatical errors because the rules prohibit anyone in Augusta from making you look smarter than you actually are.

And, oh, yes, it's going to cost you $500.

Never heard of such a thing? Apparently you're not alone.

The voter guide was approved by the Legislature back in 2005, the brainchild of former state Rep. Diane Makas, D-Lewiston.

Makas said last week that she'd grown tired of bringing absentee ballots to her constituents and trying, often unsuccessfully, to explain what the referendum questions actually meant. As she used to tell them, "I think it's a translation from the original Babylonian via Japanese."

So she convinced her fellow lawmakers to authorize a published citizen's guide to each election. And to help pay for it, she tacked on the $500-a-pop public comment section at the bottom of each question.

"I had heard that they did it that way in Oregon," Makas said last week. "And when I called them to ask if they at least broke even, the woman told me, 'Oh Lord, no. We made between $10,000 and $12,000 the first year!'"

But, alas, as Oregon goes Maine doesn't.

Of the 13 referendum questions on the statewide ballot since the first voter guide was published, only one – the unsuccessful Taxpayer Bill of Rights initiative in November 2006 – has attracted any public comments. (The maximum three comments in support of TABOR were published, along with three opposing it.)

Since then, the silence has been deafening.

Seven bond issues, ranging from $112 million for highways to $43.5 million for Maine's community college system, have come and gone without a peep.

Ditto for changes to the Dirigo Health Program, slot machines in Oxford and Washington counties and an extension of legislative term limits.

Even an initiative that would have changed the time frames for citizen initiatives and people's vetoes drew nary a yawn (to comment on that one, of course, you'd first have to figure out how citizen initiatives and people's vetoes work in the first place).

It can't be that Maine voters are shy – a quick scan of the reader comments on this newspaper's Web site proves that opinions in this state are as plentiful as black flies. (Although black flies, to be fair, know when to give it a rest.)

So is it the $500 price tag that's scaring away the wannabe pontificators?

"Oh, no," replied Makas. "I think people probably just don't know they can do it."

Maybe so. Dennis Bailey, whose Casinos No! scuttled two slot-machine initiatives, said he vaguely remembers missing the deadline in one election cycle.

Still, when you compare $500 for a public comment in the election guide to roughly the same amount for a single 30-second TV spot, Bailey noted, "I'm not sure the voter guide would be on the top of my list."

In other words, it may well be a bang-for-your-buck kind of thing.

Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn, who oversees the state's Bureau of Corporations, Elections & Commissions, said her office in recent years has reduced the number of printed voter guides...