For the record, I like Vice President Kamala Harris. In fact, I like her so much that I’ve volunteered to phone bank for her campaign. I think she’s a dedicated public servant, I think she’ll fight to preserve democracy and I think she cares deeply about reproductive freedom.
That being said, I’m also a progressive leftist, and there’s a lot of me who wants someone with more progressive policies than Harris — someone who will fight for things that matter to me like taxing the rich, socializing health care and fighting for LGBT rights across the country. I don’t see Harris as that person.
Harris certainly has my vote. The last thing in the world I would ever possibly want is a second Donald Trump presidency, and I want to do everything in my power to ensure that Arizona’s electoral votes go towards Harris. But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed casting my vote for the vice president — I do want her to win, but I don’t feel that she truly represents my beliefs, and I’d love to vote for a candidate who does.
A few days after mailing my ballot in, I saw an ad on Facebook for vote-swapping. The idea certainly intrigued me. In vote-swapping, two people trade votes — one person in a swing state, such as Arizona, and one person in a solidly Democratic state. They tell each other who to vote for.
Essentially, as a swing state voter, my only job in my vote swap was to do what I’d already done: vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. But I was matched with a voter in California and I got to tell her to vote for whoever I like.
It’s a strange feeling of power to have over another person. I was essentially telling her she would use her right to vote for who I told her to vote for, which is not an ability I ever expected to have. I knew I wanted to use this power to make my voice heard.
I simply gave my swap my Instagram and phone number and told her I wanted her to vote for Claudia de La Cruz. De La Cruz is a socialist running on a platform against billionaires, building an economy for the working class. Of course a candidate like de La Cruz can’t win in America’s two-party system — in some states, she can’t even run — but if my vote was solely meant to go to the candidate who aligns with my values, she’s who my vote would go to.
Swapping my vote means that my vote in Arizona doesn’t go to de La Cruz, but my swap’s vote in California does. This allows me to still voice my support for de La Cruz by giving her a vote; it just happens that that vote is somebody else’s.
The process of texting with my swap was simple. I told her I’d already voted for Vice President Harris, and she excitedly told me she would be voting for Claudia de La Cruz just as I’d asked her to do.
This works on a simple honor system. I simply believe that my swap will vote for de La Cruz as she’s promised to do. The idea of an honor system doesn’t bother me at all; neither my swap nor I have any incentive to lie, and I know from my conversation with her that we share similar values. Moreover, for those wondering if vote swapping is legal, I can assure you that it is, it’s nothing new and it’s even been used since at least the year 2000. But I think it’s more relevant now than ever.
That was that, and I feel great. I get to use my official vote in Arizona to know that I’m fighting Trump and feel like I’m making a difference in my state, and I get to use my swap’s vote to voice my real opinion and uplift voices that share my real values.
If you’re like me and you feel like you have to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris but you don’t really want to, check out swapyourvote.org and find your vote-swapping partner in a solidly Democratic state today.
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Kate is a student at the University of Arizona. She loves improv comedy and comic books.
