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A friend of mine called and asked me to work as a poll watcher for Tuesday’s presidential elections. I reluctantly agreed and am glad that I decided to honor her request. I now have some semblance of understanding about what voters from Florida experienced during the 2000 elections as I observed frustrated working class people being rejected, treated rudely and discounted literally and figuratively.
Denver voters no longer have to travel to any of the banana republics to experience corruption in voting. They just have to pull their heads out of the sand, widen their internal lenses, sharpen their olfactory senses and breathe the fraudulent stench in the air. It’s not a new smell. It has been floating in the atmosphere since the invention of politics, sometimes masked with the rationalizations of persons seeking out power, sometimes hidden to the naked eye.
I don’t know if political gerrymandering can be unintended but I know disorganization when it is staring me in the face. The lack of a well coordinated effort, coupled with long lines and unnecessary complications resulted in many voters being robbed of practicing democracy. Problems with how to deal with absentee ballots lack of training of those who monitor voting booths especially with an influx of new voters unfamiliar with voting protocol and crowded voting areas culminated into a voting fiasco.
What I observed flabbergasted me. The irony is that what occurred in Denver, happened at a time when computers have become gods in a modern world. Surely, with the great minds of the computer scientists, a more sophisticated system could have been developed.
I watched an elderly voter who stated that he had “lived in this neighborhood for 50 years,” try to figure why he could no longer vote in his accustomed place. Getting the bureaucratic run around, he stormed out of the school building, mumbling a few choice words.
I followed him out. I asked him to reconsider. He turned around, tore up his registration form, tossed it on the ground and left. I immediately called an attorney at the Democratic office and asked him to come out to the school.
Somehow fate intervened. The frustrated voter returned and encountered the attorney who had come out to investigate. He discussed his predicament with this attorney and decided to vote. I don’t know whether he did or not. What was evident was that his name was not on the list in that precinct where he had voted for years. He would not be allowed to vote in the same schoolhouse as he had done in the past.
Another elderly lady, solemnly seated in a chair, had been told that she had voted early. I don’t think that she was suffering from dementia, memory loss, or an inability to understand. She pleaded with the Voter Gestapo to let her vote, but to no avail. She informed them that she had not voted early. She ended up hobbling out of the schoolhouse on the verge of tears.
I approached her and asked her if I could assist her with filling out the forms. She stated, “I am sick. I shouldn’t even be out of the house. But I wanted to vote. I don’t feel well enough to fill out that mountain of paperwork. I am never going to vote again.” Suffering from a nagging condition, common sense dictated to her that she should be in bed. Democracy was alive inside of her but it has now died along with her aspirations.
The stories that I heard from members of the Election Protection Coalition, a non-partisan organization whose role is perplexing to me, were equally disgusting. As I observed them, they were huddled up outside of voting polls, offering something to the voter, but I don’t know what it could have been. A Voters Bill of Rights guided them. They generally gave directions on where voting was taking place, answered questions, but were not allowed to enter the buildings.
Ranting and raving with neighbors about politics, waving signs on street corners while shouting at cars honking their horns and leaving with a hoarse voice, listening to polemic debates on television and volunteering time on election day are important and informative campaign strategies. As voters are sequestered in voting booths, what they are faced with is their consciences. Hidden for one solitaire moment in a voting booth that has been transformed into a private closet with lights, people are forced to make tough choices.
Perhaps, we should pay more attention to the broken down political machine that seemingly lacked fresh oil during the recent elections as it literally attempted to crank out votes.
No, this story is not about a sore loser. It is about democracy in América, something that should be cherished and respected but failed.
Ramón Del Castillo, Ph.D. is an Independent Journalist.
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