Swing State Voter furious about Gaza? Swap Your Vote
Why Swapping Your Vote can make the most of our unethical two-party system and broken democracy, while amplifying our protest of US weapons sales to the Israeli assault on Gaza.
by Rae Abileah
A lot of us this year are deeply frustrated with both of the major parties given their actions aiding ongoing atrocities in Gaza. Voting for Harris feels like endorsing the current administration’s actions. A second Trump presidency would cause even more damage.
So many voters are relieved to learn about a strategy to vote to stop Trump (elect Harris) while protesting the current administration – vote swapping. While we had a hunch that this would be an integral strategy during this razor-thin election, we couldn’t have fathomed how much!
Vote swapping allows voters in swing states to double the impact of their protest vote and take advantage of being in one of the few states that matters for deciding whether Harris or Trump will be our next President. A swing state voter fills out a quick form on SwapYourVote.org and is matched with two voters in solid blue state like California, who are willing to protest vote as you’d prefer - vote uncommitted or for a specific third party, and in exchange, you’d vote for Harris. Solid Dem state voters can also sign up to pledge to vote the protest vote of the swing state voter’s choice as the swing state voter casts their vote for Harris.
This way, you get to protest the Democrats by reducing their total vote count and doubling your protest vote, while still hurting Trump most by voting for Harris to beat him in critical swing states where a few thousands of votes are likely to decide the election.
Georgia Rep. Ruwa Romman, after the DNC denied her and other Palestinian-Americans speaking roles has been advocating for vote-swapping, along with other Palestinian Americans to make the most of this deeply difficult election decision. Lilly Greenberg, who quit the Biden administration over its continued support of Israel’s bombing, has also called for vote swapping this election.
We know our movements are interconnected and that a Trump administration would threaten our ability to tend to the planet, keep people safe, and build power. We know that, to protect marginalized communities both here and abroad, we have to make sure Donald Trump is never again our president. We can send a wake-up call to Democrats this election by increasing our protest vote count nationwide as much as possible and decrease the total number of Harris votes. The highest-leverage way to do that is in safe democratic states, where there are multiple Harris voters willing to protest vote in exchange for just one extra vote in a swing state.
Vote swapping allows a swing state voter to make the maximum impact by doing all of the above. It’s been done in several elections since 2000, and has been ruled legal, as swaps are trust-based and involve no financial exchange.
While not ideal, Harris is the better opponent to have in government as the fight for Palestinian liberation continues. As Aurora Levins Morales reminds us, “We are choosing an opponent, not a leader.” As VP, Harris also had limited influence in the current administration’s decision-making, and can be pushed as president to call for an arms embargo and end military aid to Israel.
We are listening to voices from communities most impacted. “I cannot imagine Donald Trump would get a place in the White House once again. Absolutely, he will support Israel forever even if Israel commits more and more massacres against us” Samia al-Alami, a Gaza-based woman, told Reckon. The 39-year-old mother of four lost her entire family during an Israeli airstrike that attacked her house in al-Yarmouk neighborhood in Gaza City in February
On the other hand, Netanyahu, and Israelis, want Trump to win – more than the most Republican state in the US (63% Trump vs. 20% for Harris as per an Israeli Channel 13 poll). With Trump promising to “give Bibi whatever he wants” and calling for repression of student protesters on campuses, progress on Palestine will be much harder under Trump. Don’t take our word for it; here’s how the co-founder of the Uncommitted Movement, Abbas Alawieh, describes how hard it would be to organize for a free Palestine under a future Trump presidency:
“Trump’s son-in-law is fantasizing about million-dollar condos on Gaza’s beach. He’s taking campaign contributions from people who want the full annexation of the West Bank. So we also have to be very clear about the rise of global authoritarianism, of which Trump and the Republican Party’s MAGA extremism is a face. We have to take stock of what it would look like for Trump to be president and whether we’re doing the difficult work of this moment—which is not pretty, and a lot of folks don’t want to hear it—in the sense of telling people and being clear about what our organizing would look like under Donald Trump.”
SwapYourVote.org is an effort that sprouted directly from folks deeply engaged in organizing within our Palestinian liberation movement across the US as a way to not only vote strategically and with our conscience, but also to bring our fragmented movement together. Splintering the Left is a time-honored tactic of rising dictators and we will not be divided in our urgent call for an arms embargo and an end to the bombing of Gaza. From a group of four dedicated activists who came together mid-October, this effort has grown exponentially to include over 30 people working day and night to make matches and engage communities. No SwapYourVote organizers are affiliated with any political party.
As adrienne maree brown so wisely says: "we weren’t being cliche when we said voting is harm reduction. voting is not exciting, not to me anymore at least. it’s security, storing rations while we seed the next crop." This is especially critical for voters in presidential battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona. No decision is easy, but vote-swapping is one creative harm-reduction solution to the daunting situation we find ourselves in this 2024 election.
President Joe Biden has been terrible on Palestine (as has pretty much every other U.S. President). We don’t know if a future President Harris would break with Biden on Palestine, but with statements like, “I will always fight for the Palestinian people to be able to realize their right to dignity, freedom, security, and self-determination,” who knows. It’s evident to anyone on the left that Democrats should take concrete action to halt the violence (including an arms embargo, immediate humanitarian aid delivery, and an end to settler violence) not only because it’s the moral course of action, but because not doing so will likely cost them crucial votes from the Arab-American community and beyond. Right now, however, Harris seems unwilling to take that risk; instead, she is courting Republicans, taking money from the Israel lobby, and pursuing a broadly centrist election strategy. Once elected, however, she may be more susceptible to pressure than her predecessor, and certainly than her opponent. Not to mention, a fresh Democrat in the Oval Office could bolster senators to join Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) call for an arms embargo when his bill comes to the floor mid-November.
For more on why keeping Trump and Republicans out of office is critical for the future of Palestinian liberation, see 7 Strategic Axioms for the Anxious Progressive Voter.
