Swing-state voters angered with the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza and hesitant to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris have a new way to register their dissent: swapping their vote with someone in a safely Democratic state.
The last-minute movement organized by Palestine solidarity protesters has attracted a shoutout from John Oliver and the support of thousands of frustrated voters including Democratic Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman, one of the Palestinian Americans who was denied a chance to address the Democratic National Convention in August.
The vote-swap movement comes as progressives across the country describe agonizing decisions over how to voice disapproval of the administration without inadvertently aiding Donald Trump. And, now, disaffected voters can get double their value, swapping one swing-state vote with Harris for two non-swing-state protest votes for another option, organizers said.
Romman told The Intercept on Monday that, after initial skepticism, she saw the effort as an important option for “people like me, who continue to be completely torn up about how to maneuver this election cycle as an ongoing genocide continues in Gaza.”
Here’s how the practice works: Someone like Romman, in a state that is expected to have a razor-thin margin, casts their vote for Kamala Harris. Through the Swap Your Vote website, they are connected with a voter in a safely blue state, who agrees to cast a ballot for a third-party or write-in candidate as a protest against the administration’s foreign policy.
Romman said she cast her vote for Harris in Georgia, a decision she explained in a Rolling Stone op-ed, while pairing with voters in safe states. She left it up to them to decide who to back.
The website’s organizers include Rae Abileah, a Jewish Voice for Peace member and former co-director of CODEPINK, who said the practice was inspired by efforts in past presidential elections.
Abileah pointed to the 2000 presidential election, which Al Gore lost to George W. Bush by a few hundred votes in Florida. That margin was much smaller than the number of votes cast in Florida for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.
“If more people had traded votes and voted for Nader in safe states, and voted for Gore in Florida, we would be living in a completely different reality,” Abileah said.
U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., was one of the first to propose organized vote swapping during the 2000 election, and the practice took off during the 2016 race.
While the current vote-swapping effort is firmly directed at progressives, Abileah said some participants may be motivated by issues besides Gaza, including corporate influence over politics and the climate crisis.
Two-for-One Swaps
Through Monday, the effort had drawn the support of more than 8,000 voters, according to swapyourvote.org. Abileah said the site is now pairing one swing-state voter who casts their ballot for Harris with two voters in safe states who will cast ballots for someone else.
“The doubling is really to acknowledge the weight, the intensity, of having to cast this vote for Democrats at a time when our target audience is disillusioned and heartbroken,” she said.
Organizers say the practice is legal. They point to a 2007 federal circuit court ruling that vote-swapping is protected by the First Amendment.
Abileah acknowledged that there is no way for voters in swing states to ensure that their partners in safe states will follow through on their promises to vote for third-party or write-in candidates.
“The doubling is really to acknowledge the weight, the intensity, of having to cast this vote for Democrats.”
The Harris campaign has not endorsed the vote-swapping push, according to Abileah. She said that it has, however, drawn support from the Movement Voter PAC and other organizations.
Abileah said the group of progressives backing the effort only began building a website on October 10 after it became clear that Harris would not break with Biden over the war.
“It just should never have been this hard. The majority of Democrats oppose what is happening, have done everything they could to push the party,” Romman said. “I really, really hope that come Tuesday, we can start planning on pushing the Harris administration on this.”
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