My partner and I took turns poll watching today. It was interesting, but got more and more depressing as the day went on. First, a little Arizona history.

I am not sure of the date, but I think it was right after the 2008 elections, Arizona changed their 'primaries' scheduling, and laws. Historically, AZ has open primaries, and everyone is used to that. There are actually more people registered in Arizona as "independent" than there are either Democrats or Republicans. They can...make that could...vote for whoever they wanted in the Primaries.

Well, after 2008, AZ moved the primaries later on the calendar (August 30 this year), but separated the presidential candidates out into a new election, The Presidential Preference Election. That was today. The thing that threw so many people for a loop was that it was a "closed" election. You had to be registered (R), (D), or (G), by Feb 22nd, and today you got only the corresponding ballot. If you were (I), they said, "sorry" , and sent you home.

We spent months trying to get this word out. You MUST be registered (D) to vote for Bernie...or Hillary. The Republicans went at it differently, and sent out a mailer saying you MUST be registered (R), or you can't vote. Most of the (I)s didn't fall for that, but simply refused to change their status as (I). We argued, cajoled, did whatever we could to convince stubborn (I)s, many of whom Wanted to vote for Bernie, that they had to switch to (D) to do it...for this election only.

So as we watched the voting today, we saw roughly 20% of the voters turned away. Some of them very mad, but there was nothing we could do about it. Some of them our friends and neighbors...who should have known better.

I haven't even looked at any results yet. It will be too depressing. The only consolation is that many Trump voters were turned away...but that really doesn't help to stop Hillary right now.