People who know me will tell me I should let this go, but it’s my blog and I will never let it go.

As I have mentioned before, I spent 50 years as an ACTIVE Democrat.  I knew the party had moved to the right, but I thought in time we could bring it back to progressive and to being a party of and for the people.  I suppose I was skeptical from about the time Bill Clinton came in, but I still had hope.

All that took a drastic turn on June 7, 2016, when I worked as a poll watcher for the Democratic primary at UCLA.  I knew there had been a lot of dirty tricks.  A registrar in Brooklyn had removed 150,000 voters from the roster, and in my own state of Arizona, the number of polling places had been cut so low that people had to stand in line for up to six hours to vote, and the polls in Puerto Rico were unexpectedly closed at 3:00, before people were off work.  However, nothing had adequately prepared me for California.

We arrived at the polling place before the polls open and helped them set up equipment.  Once the polls open we were sent outside to do our exit poll.  Most people voting were the college students.  They were very excited to make their first vote.  Like me, they were supporting the progressive candidate, Bernie Sanders.

Our assignment was to give them our phones to fill out the exit poll after they had actually voted.  However, we were told that if they had been given a provisional ballot, we could not ask them to participate.  By fifteen minutes into the process, we noticed that almost everyone had a pink copy, which meant they had received a provisional ballot.  Many of them had brought along their sample ballots, which clearly showed they had legitimately registered.  When we asked a poll worker why they were receiving provisional ballots, we were told that the roster of all newly registered voters had been lost, and that they were trying to find it.  One of us went to another polling place also on the UCLA campus and were told the same thing.  We were all educated enough to know that provisional ballots are not always counted, and told the students coming to the polling places that they should go take their finals and come back to vote after the rosters had been found.

I know I should have known better, but for a time I actually believed they were trying to find them.  Years before we would have been able to get a news channel involved.  No one seemed to care.  We were up front with the students.  We told they should do whatever they could to get a real ballot.  For this, we were told by the County Registrar’s representative, that we were upsetting the students and that we should just let them think their provisional ballots would count so they would be happy.  Maybe we should have.

I, for one, was traumatized.  My fellow poll watchers were too.  I think we all new that the election had been rigged and that it was over, but to see it so up close was very difficult.  I think it was harder for me because I had given the party my time, my money and my hopes, and my devotion for so many years.

So, here we are four years later.  The corruption that included our experience has been exposed, and a Supreme Court hearing denied.  It seems that the “Democratic Party” has no obligation to hold a fair election.  Another primary has taken place and another candidate has been chosen by the powers that be.  I will most likely have to vote for the chosen candidate because of the horrifying alternative. However, the Democratic Party will never again receive my time, my money, my devotion, and now my trust.