Democracy wasn’t doing so well Tuesday afternoon at 351 W. 18th St. I went with my friend Patty to pass out a few leaflets outside the polling place at Bayard Rustin High School. While there, we were alternately harassed and threatened with arrest by five different police officers even as we stood beyond a sign that clearly marked the 100 ft. boundary where we could legally distribute political literature. The leaflets had information about this summer’s protests against the Republican National Convention. The reason we were passing them out: to remind Super Tuesday voters know there are other ways to participate in a democracy besides voting. Patty repeatedly asked the police to examine the fine print on the "No Electioneering" sign, which read in plain black and white “from polling place to this point”. The first two police officers who came on the scene adamantly refused to read the law they were supposed to uphold, yelling back at Patty that they knew what the law was and that we had to move another 150 feet down the street or face arrest. One of them even told us we could cause our candidate to “lose points” if we continued to act out of line. Patty Heffley wouldn’t back down. She’s lived in the neighborhood for over 20 years and has passed out election day leaflets in front of this school before. The cops didn’t know what to make of this large, loud woman in baggy pants and a bright red jacket shouting at them “I have every right to be here! I have every right to be here! I know what my rights are!” I grabbed my address book and urged Patty to start calling friends to let them know what was up in case we were taken away. The two cops briefly disappeared. Then an unmarked, dark green car with two more police officers pulled up. They were quickly in our face threatening to arrest us if we continued leafleting. We again pointed to the sign that was posted on a nearby wall. They looked at it and said that Board of Election rules didn’t matter because they said the law was 250 feet. Everything quickly became a blur. The cops were large and intimidating. One of them was shouting at us “Do you understand? Do you understand?” when we said we wanted to continue leafleting where we were. Somewhere in all this they asked for a copy of our flyers and demanded our names. We hesitated. I struggled to remember the role plays at an activist legal training I attended several years ago, Anyhow, rights don’t mean much when the other guy has all the power. They jotted our names down and then poured it on saying that we had to leave or be arrested because our presence was “inconveniencing” voters and that their complaints about us from elections workers inside. We pointed to the sign and repeated that all we wished to do was pass out the flyers where it was legally permissible. They told us the sign had been erroneously posted because the election coordinator inside was “95 years old” and wasn’t able to walk all the way to where the sign should’ve been placed. The fifth police officer to arrive on the scene was Sgt. Filomena. He had a silver handlebar moustache and played the kindly good cop to the other bad cops. He said the distance between street lamps was 75 feet and that if we resumed passing out flyers at the second street lamp everything would be fine. In fact, if we wanted to fudge it and come in a little closer than the second street lamp, he wouldn’t make a big deal of it. While we stood there trying to figure out what to do, a poll walker popped out of the school and took the blue and white diamond sign that marks the 100 foot boundary and moved it another 150 feet down the street. We asked him not to but he told us he was just doing his job. He told us it would be “better for everyone” if we went all the way to the corner at 8th Ave. to pass out flyers. The cops continued eyeing us from a distance before finally leaving. We went inside. Arnold Robeck is the election coordinator at the Rustin polling site. He doesn’t look a day over 75. He snorted when told what the police officer had said about him. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years and I know what I’m doing.” Robeck opened the 2004 Poll Workers’ Manual to the relevant passage (“Candidates and watchers may not… electioneer within a 100-foot radius of the poll entrance. Electioneering includes distributing, wearing or carrying political literature, posters, or banners; and soliciting votes.”) on Page 13. He then went and got the sign and restored it to the 100-foot mark. He promised to support us if there were any more problems. We passed out most of the rest of our flyers before we both had to leave to do other things.