"We're told every four years that our vote is worth as much as some rich guy's vote," he said. "That's true because neither vote is worth anything."
A union boilermaker, Steele was passing out newsletters for the Revolutionary Communist Party. He said the only way to affect real change is to "overthrow the system."
Just steps away on Boston Common, Ralph Nader supporter and retired television executive Tom P. Cancilla, 65, said he always makes it to the polls.
As Cancilla tossed peanuts to the nearly tame squirrels, he mused how citizens would not exercise their democratic rights.
"When I was leaving to vote this morning," he said, "I asked a custodian in my building 'Have you voted?' and he said, 'Oh, I don't vote.'"
"People in other countries would give their right arms to vote in an election," he concluded.