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Bernie Sanders
Related: About this forumAn interesting first person anecdote from California on Facebook
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10153910165834219&id=631089218Oh you guys, you GUYS! This just happened: I went to my neighborhood polling place to vote at 4:30pm. While I'm filling in my ballot it becomes clear from the chatter amongst the poll workers that they've almost run out of both Democratic ballots AND crossover ballots (which is what allows voters who registered with No Party Preference to cross over and vote Democrat in this primary...i.e. allows people who identify as party outliers to vote for Bernie as they are wont to do!) The significance of this is not lost on you, I'm sure. It's before 5pm, the after-work 5-8pm rush is about to begin, and they have RUN OUT OF BALLOTS! So I volunteer to go to the next nearest polling location and they are also COMPLETELY OUT of Democratic ballots. WTF!? The poll workers tell me they have had a massive turnout and SO many crossover voters that they've burned through all their ballots. This is not the fault of the volunteer poll workers, if sits squarely on the shoulders of the California Elections Office at the Secretary of State. They KNEW that voter turnout was going to be unusually high...it's all the media here has been talking about.
So. This story gets stranger yet. I'm fuming as I drive down Sunset, thinking that if this is happening in Silverlake, LA's gentrifying neighborhood of upwardly mobile and well-enfranchised intelligentsia, imagine the scenario in the deeply black and brown neighborhoods!! SO PISSED OFF that Hillary (bless her but she's an undebatable warhawk) is going to be installed this way. Between ballot shortages and the AP calling the race for Hillary yesterday on the eve of the election so the less motivated amongst us would just stay home. Grrrrr.
I get to a police motorcade 2 blocks down Sunset, and who is it but Bernie Sanders making a campaign stop at the evening Silverlake farmer's market! The crowd is small and I quickly park, walk over, stand in his handshake path, and tell him face to face that all the neighborhood polling locations appear to be out of any ballot by which anyone could have voted for him. His face, you guys, the knowing chagrine of a principled man fighting the good fight, in the right way, for the right reasons, against ALL odds and powerful special interests. Ugh. And yet he's still incredulous, as we all should be, that at 5pm in California on election Tuesday there's no way to cast a vote for the candidate of your choice. Provisional ballots? Pshaw. Like those get counted (or even if they do...remember Florida?)
Bernie is immediately on the ball, headed straight to the polls with the media in tow to get some exposure for this. I spend 5 minutes talking to his wife Jane and his aide Shane about exactly what I know, what I experienced, and within minutes I'm called by Bernie's voter protection team to make a statement. And that's how this story ends I guess. With the Associated Press calling the results the day BEFORE the election, and the State of California failing to enable their citizens to vote? Come ON. Hard to believe that this is the best we can come up with.
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Hmmmm ... Is the Democratic Party salvageable?
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An interesting first person anecdote from California on Facebook (Original Post)
Trajan
Jun 2016
OP
I posted a Silverlake photo thread - it has one of a woman explaining ballot problems to Bernie
Donkees
Jun 2016
#6
Raster
(20,998 posts)1. Yes! The Democratic Party is salvageable, but it is going to take all of us!
grasswire
(50,130 posts)2. Add to that the POTUS endorsing before CA is finished counting.
The first POTUS to endorse a candidate under criminal investigation by his own administration.
The only explanation for the suppression of votes and the rush is to make her more unindictable.
This country is in deep doo-doo. At least this woman got to meet Bernie in person....
Triana
(22,666 posts)4. "Hmmmm ... Is the Democratic Party salvageable? "
IMO - NO. Not as it stands today.
Bernin4U
(812 posts)5. Great story, thanks.
Was about to write, "very cool story", but maybe that's too easy to come off wrong.
Donkees
(31,372 posts)6. I posted a Silverlake photo thread - it has one of a woman explaining ballot problems to Bernie
Trajan
(19,089 posts)9. I believe you captured the moment
She is a friend of my daughter ... Thanks
monmouth4
(9,694 posts)7. There are going to be lawsuits, no doubt. Your statement will be one of many included I would bet.
DI Freighter Watcher
(128 posts)8. Crying
Just crying, our Democracy is lost to us.
So sad for each and everyone of us.
I will Never legitimize FRAUD by calling it a victory.
amborin
(16,631 posts)10. I posted about the predicted CA ballot shortage a week ago:
Pluvious
(4,308 posts)11. Sadly, politics is a dirty game
With the advantage to those who fight the dirtiest.