A 26-year-old actor from the Valley had to fight for his right to vote on the day of the primary election in California. This, despite arriving bright and early at 9 a.m. at his polling place with his sample ballot and his voting guide. Before leaving his home, Jonathan D. Brown had checked online to make sure his name was on the rolls. And it was.
But the poll worker said it wasn’t.
“I was beyond shocked and really heartbroken as I’ve been doing activism for the Sanders campaign for I guess over a year now. And the night before, with Hillary Clinton calling it early, it was like, well, a provisional ballot, I might as well throw my vote in the trash.”
Brown refused to take the provisional ballot and the poll worker got very angry.
“He kept yelling “next, next!”
Brown went home, which was across the street from the polling place. And there he stewed and vented for about an hour. What would he do?
“I saw that other activists and other Bernie supporters were going back and challenging their ballot. So that’s what I did. I went back and I said, ‘I’m not leaving ’til I vote. I know this is my spot. I know I’m registered to vote here. I don’t care if I’m not on the roll.’ ”
Frustrated, Brown called and left a message for the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean C. Logan.
“I let him know what was going on. And I sent him a message over Twitter as well as leaving a message on their hotline.”
At that point one of the poll workers became “agitated” and approached him. Feeling intimidated, Brown started to video record him with his phone. The poll workers called the police. But by the time officers arrived, Dean Logan had already contacted the poll workers and told one worker named Carlos to calm down.
“I said, ‘Carlos you got to stop having a kanipchen fit. I’m just here because I want to vote. And I’m not leaving until I vote.’ ”
Brown credits his large social media presence for the relatively quick response by county officials.
“Sometimes I feel like there are perks to being in the entertainment industry where you have a stupid little verified check on your account when you use social media programs that let certain people see things. I wonder that if I was just, you know, an everyday person I would have had such luck. Probably not.”
After four hours, he finally got to cast his vote.
Jonathan D. Brown was a guest on 790 KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning with Doug McIntyre and Terri-Rae Elmer.
By Sandy Wells
KABC News
