To U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy: You’ve made it clear that no matter how the citizens of our state vote, you will give our election to Hillary Clinton because you made a “promise” to support her and you never go back on your promise.

But which promise came first? The oath of office you take each time you win our votes — an oath that demands you serve the people of this state — or the promise you made to another politician in the name of political patronage?

Your allegiance is no longer to the people of Vermont but rather to a political party. You have promised to stump for Bernie should he win the party’s nomination — a rather cynical and disingenuous promise, given that the party is beholden to corporate interests and their chosen candidate, Hillary.

But that is not a promise to uphold the will and the votes of the people — it’s a promise to continue working as a party hack for what has become a political brand, not a party that represents democracy.

Senator Leahy, where is your promise to uphold democracy? As a superdelegate who has promised to give my vote to Hillary Clinton rather than to the candidate I’ve actually voted for, you are destroying any semblance of democracy and throwing out the system of one person, one vote that is supposed to be the underpinning of this nation’s system of government.

How is rendering my vote invalid any different from rigging an election, stealing ballots, or turning away voters because of their race or political affiliation?

The claims that the primaries are more like private elections is absurd and would not stand up to a lawsuit: There have been no other viable third-party candidates in this nation for many decades.

Thanks in large part to the efforts of the Democratic Party, most third-party candidates cannot even get on the ballots and so the only realistic candidates are from either the Democratic or Republican parties.

Even if the primaries could be argued to be governed by certain party regulations, as long as they are open to the public, they are also governed by federal laws, which prohibit voter intimidation, coercion, vote tampering, or any activity which deliberately convinces voters that if they vote for a particular candidate, their vote will not be counted.

You are also destroying any hope of the Democratic Party winning the presidency, much less a majority in Congress. The blatant vote-rigging that you and the other superdelegates have promised to carry out will result not just in the massive disenfranchisement you are planning, but also in a massive disengagement of the growing, newly-energized citizenry who will forevermore see the Democratic Party as the party that stole their votes and replaced any hope of democracy with corrupt, business-as-usual cynicism.

Senator Leahy, I ask — on behalf of the voters of Vermont, on behalf of the newly ignited hope that we can dismantle the hegemony of the corporate and monied interests, and on behalf of all of us who have been rendered powerless and penniless — that you listen to the people you promised to support and uphold long before you became beholden to a political party.

Abide by our vote, no matter the outcome, and do not render our voices meaningless and mute.

Mimi Yahn

Springfield, Vt.