Monterey No Kings rally protestors make the case for voting.

It was about 85 degrees at Window on the Bay by the time the Monterey No Kings protest officially got underway at 2pm on Saturday, Oct. 17. The hot, sunny weather did not deter up to 1,500 people from coming out to protest the Trump Administration and urge people to vote in the upcoming midterm elections on Nov. 3.

It was one of around 3,000 protests nationwide, including two additional Monterey County protests in Salinas and Big Sur.

"This is what democracy looks like," said Pacific Grove Councilmember Tina Rau, addressing the crowd. "I'll tell you what democracy doesn't look like. Democracy does not look like 89 million people sitting it out in 2024, and now we are paying for their inaction."

Rau used herself as an example: In 2022, she lost her bid for council by 53 votes. She won in 2024, after appearing to be losing on the night of the election but later pulling ahead of incumbent Luke Coletti as vote counting continued. 

"If your vote was not important, they would stop trying to take it away from you. Voting is the most valuable thing that you have. The only way to get ourselves out of this is to vote our way out of it," she said.

Rau urged people to take people with them to the ballot box, as well as call friends and family, including in other states to ask them if they've made a plan to vote.

Murtaza Mogri, a lead organizer for Indivisible Monterey and former planning commissioner in Agoura Hills, connected attacks on the right to vote in the U.S. to similar attacks in other parts of the world, including India where recently 130 million people were removed from voting rolls.

"We are in a fight for democracy against fascism. And voting is not enough," he said. "We need to vote. We have to vote, but we have to get out the vote. We need to get others to vote, and we need to protect the vote."

Near the end of his speech he led the crowd in a chant: "The people united will never be defeated!"

The protest also included a performance based on the Sinclair Lewis' 1935 satirical dystopian novel It Can't Happen Here. The message of the reading was the same, voting is necessary to protect people's freedoms.

Near the end of the protest about 50 people left to head across town to the Monterey County Elections dropbox in front of the Monterey Public Library about a mile away. A couple playing a small drum, tambourine and maraca provided a steady cadence for the march.

Once the group reached the dropbox, at least two participants ceremoniously dropped their ballots into the box.