Why I Love Swap Your Vote
(not just because it could tip the election)
By Billy Wimsatt
Just over a week ago, I learned about a scrappy new effort called Swap Your Vote.
Swap Your Vote is a campaign to encourage conflicted progressive voters in swing states to swap 3rd party votes with Harris voters in safe blue states. People are matched through the Swap Your Vote website (or match themselves informally through their own networks) and make an agreement based on trust.
The swing state voter agrees to vote for Harris in a state like Michigan or Pennsylvania. And the safe state voter in a state like Massachusetts or California votes for whomever the swing state voter would have otherwise voted for – typically Jill Stein or Cornel West, or maybe they write in “arms embargo.” Whatever the swing state voter requests in order to feel comfortable making the swap.
I found the idea intriguing so I decided to fill out the form and try it! Coincidentally, at the same time, I also got matched informally through a friend in Michigan with an amazing organizer, Desirae Simmons, who serves on the Ypsilanti City County. Desirae will be voting in Michigan for Kamala Harris on my behalf (thank you Desirae!). And I will be voting in Massachusetts for Cornel West on her behalf. Desirae and I started talking and we came up with the idea to create a little “sister cities” or possibly even a “sister states” exchange between voters in Ypsilanti, Michigan and Massachusetts. We’re both putting it out to our networks and hoping that we can quickly find a critical mass in both communities to take a leap of faith together over the next seven days. Desirae and I decided on the spot that we were both comfortable being public about this and that we would share our story as a way to hopefully inspire others.
I’m getting together with some friends in Western Mass and hoping to help organize a noticeable number of voters (dozens? hundreds?) to vote for Cornel West in solidarity with Desirae and others in Michigan. Ideally, I’m hoping that folks in Western Mass will be able to match Michigan voters who are willing to swap by a ratio of 2:1 or even 3:1 as a way to show our commitment to having the backs and earning the trust of progressive Michigan voters – many of whom are feeling heartbroken over Gaza and betrayed by their country and by the Democratic Party.
I was so inspired by this effort that I also offered to help out with Swap Your Vote nationally. Here are some quick reflections on why I believe that this project is important on a deeper-than-voting level. In addition to the obvious electoral value, I think it has the potential, in a small yet meaningful way, to help us take a collective baby step toward healing our dangerously fractured left / progressive / Democratic coalition. We are desperately going to need this coalition for the rest of our lives if we ever want to see a progressive future, not to mention a few weeks from now. Whether we find ourselves living under a Harris presidency or a Trump regime, we are going to need each other more than ever in the coming months and years. Swap Your Vote is a small way to work on healing and rebuilding the alliances we’re going to need in either scenario and over the long term.
Where did Swap Your Vote Come From?
Swap Your Vote is modeled on previous efforts dating back to at least 2000. A similar effort in the UK prevented the rise of right-wing authoritarians. And a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) experiment on a similar vote swapping service in 2016 (that analyzed 4,500 potential vote swappers) found that swing state voters who matched and agreed to swap their votes were 32% more likely to vote for Hilary Clinton than voters who were not matched.
Swap Your Vote was created as a labor of love by two veteran activists, Andrew Boyd, founder of Beautiful Trouble, and Rae Abileah, a longtime peace and justice organizer. With just 7 days to go, a growing number of us who love this idea are pitching in to help spread the word that this amazing service exists!
And yes, it’s totally legal. As long as no money is exchanged, it’s just an agreement between people (see this steamy vote swapping scene from West Wing).
The biggest problem with Swap Your Vote right now is that it just launched and not enough people know about it. Time is short! The #1 thing you can do right now is spread the word so that as many people as possible know it is a real option!
What are people saying about Swap the Vote?
I’m hearing three main reactions:
One: People who are using it are loving it. Like: “Thank God this exists!” I’ve now heard several real life success stories and testimonials. An activist in Georgia who was deeply conflicted about voting for Harris filled out the Swap Your Vote form and was connected to a prospective Harris voter in California who agreed to vote for Jill Stein on her behalf. The two not only had a great conversation. They plan to keep in touch and hope to meet up one day in person. She described it as a profound experience. We’ve heard a lot of similar stories.
Two: Some people who are very conventional Democrats are attacking the idea and saying it’s dangerous to promote voting for third party candidates in any context, even in Blue states. Some of these folks have reached out to yell at me and tell me I’m making a mistake by helping this project. With all due respect, they’re wrong.
Three: Some people who are (understandably) angry with the Democratic Party over Gaza and/or who are Jill Stein or other 3rd party supporters are against this idea (even though it would generate more votes for 3rd party candidates in blue states) because some folks want to punish Harris in swing states, make her lose, and hope to teach the Democratic Party a lesson (not to send bombs to Israel and not to take anti-war voters for granted).
Here’s my take: Swap Your Vote isn’t for everybody. It is for the small but meaningful category of swing state voters who are genuinely conflicted. They know they don’t want Trump. But they cannot bring themselves to vote for Harris. They want to protest the Democratic Party and send a message that they are not OK (to say the least) with the US role in supporting Israel’s destruction of Gaza and escalating violence against Palestinians. But they also believe that a second Trump presidency would be terrible domestically in the US, would criminalize protest (!), and would likely be even worse for Palestinians than a Harris presidency.
I believe that there are thousands of voters in swing states who feel conflicted in this way. Swap Your Vote strategically addresses both concerns: it gives these voters a way to express their anger at the ballot box and block Trump from coming to power.
But How Can I Trust the Other Person?
Swap Your Vote requires trust on both sides. One of the biggest questions that Swap the Vote organizers are getting: "How can I trust that the person I swap with will actually follow through?"
Honestly, it’s a leap of faith!
People who sign up are asked to include information about themselves including social media accounts. And there is a team of volunteer “yentas” on the back end who vet potential vote swappers and try to make good matches. It’s pretty cute!
I believe that the vast majority of people who participate in Swap Your Vote will be doing so in good faith and will honor their word – on both sides. And since many more blue state voters are signing up than swing state voters, some swing state voters are arranging to swap with 2 or 3 or more safe state voters. Folks in safe states want to be extra sure we have the backs of our swing state partners. We are willing to meet you more than halfway! Sign ups on the website are running a 3:1 ratio of blue states and swing states, so there are plenty of blue state voters to go around. And we are organizing a whole crew in Western Mass to make sure we have more than enough blue state voters participating so that anyone who participates in a swing state will have at least one person to swap with – and ideally more!
Beyond using strategic voting to block Trump together, my deeper hope for Swap Your Vote is that in a small yet profound way, we can reclaim our collective sense that we are in this together: You can trust me to have your back. I will trust you to have mine. Swap Your Vote, at its best, has the potential to help restore our faith in humanity, at least a little bit... It is a sacred exercise in connection, in empathy, in solidarity. It is a tiny baby step toward rebuilding our broken coalition. It's saying to a stranger: "Hey, we may have some different views on the candidates but we also have a lot of views in common. I'm going to trust you and put my faith in you with my sacred vote – and you can trust me with yours."
As someone who is now helping out a little bit on this project, I want to assure swing state voters who use this tool that blue state voters who use this tool are doing everything in our power to operate with integrity, sincerity, and care.
Bottom line: Swap Your Vote offers a way for voters to connect in ways both strategic and human ways, to build trust and solidarity of the kind our coalition requires to move forward, and to work together toward the electoral outcome we need now in order to ensure future electoral possibilities to achieve the world we really want.
If you are so inclined.
