Why I Swapped My Vote and Why You Should Too

Probably the most impactful thing you can do about the presidential election right now

I usually write about AI, but these are unusual times.

Since I moved from Pennsylvania in 2017, it’s been hard to be motivated to vote. There are rarely any real choices presented to me on my ballot in Brooklyn, and there’s no chance my vote will tip New York’s electoral votes. 

But this year, I’m actually excited to walk down the block to my polling station and vote for Claudia De la Cruz of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Why? Because, in exchange, Abdullah in Georgia says he’ll vote for Harris. 

On Friday, I learned about SwapYourVote, signed up in under a minute, and was matched the next day. The site now promises matches within an hour of signing up. 

The idea is simple: protest voters in swing states agree to be matched with Harris voters in safe blue states, who then swap votes. It’s actually an even better deal for swing-state voters, who will be matched with two safe blue voters for their one vote for Harris. 

Every presidential election year, leftists and others disaffected with the duopoly running the country are harangued for even considering voting for a third party, especially if they live in a swing state. 

I can relate to both sides of this. There isn’t nearly as much daylight as I would like between Democrats and Republicans on many important issues, from arming Israel to immigration. Biden has presided over and enabled one of the most extreme periods of mass slaughter in decades. I understand the frustration of having genuine, deep-seated objections to destructive policies that Democrats support, but feeling nonetheless forced to vote for them because the alternative is unthinkable. 

With all that said, I think there is still clearly a harm-reducing choice, and I hope swing-state voters cast their ballots for Harris. 

But the beautiful thing about vote-swapping is that you don’t actually have to agree with me to think it makes sense to swap your vote. Instead of piling on to people who are understandably having a difficult time pulling the lever for a party complicit in an ongoing genocide, you can actually offer them something in return for their vote (some people call this ‘politics’). 

You get to mercifully sidestep one of the most charged and toxic corners of the discourse. Instead of yelling at people on the internet for making the “wrong choice,” you can change the odds ever so slightly while helping signal dissatisfaction with the choices presented to us. 

Many vote-swappers have already shown themselves to be serious about resisting Democratic support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Vote swappers include Ruwa Romman, a Georgia state representative who was not permitted to speak for the Uncommitted movement at the DNC, and Lily Greenberg Call, a Biden political appointee who resigned from the administration in protest of US support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. 

Every four years, the mainstream media temporarily lifts its informal policy of ignoring Noam Chomsky to amplify his argument that swing-state voters should support the Democrat for president. Unfortunately, Chomsky’s health means that we probably won’t hear from him on Harris-Trump, but we can guess that he would encourage people to vote for the lesser of two evils. 

I agree with Chomsky that voting should not be seen as an expression of personal identity. I also don’t think a vote represents a wholehearted endorsement of genocide, or any other specific policy. Instead, a vote is one method of many to influence the world. Something that will produce consequences, some of which are better than others. Voting is also the bare minimum, rather than the be-all and end-all of “doing politics.”

I also like the framing of: Who would you rather be organizing against? Who's more likely to actually be movable by your advocacy?

Or in starker terms: Which candidate will see leftist activists as a constituency they need to listen to? Which will instead see them as the legitimate targets of state violence?

There is a sentiment in some parts of the left that things couldn’t be worse, but that’s just not true. 

Trump’s first term wasn’t as bad as many predicted, but still resulted in a 6-3 rightwing majority on the Supreme Court that has already produced many calamities, most famously the end of Roe, which has contributed to women dying preventable deaths. 

In addition, Trump was reined in by his staff countless times in his first term. That moderating force will be gone in the sequel, replaced by fanatics who have spent years planning to wield the executive branch to realize a racist, Christian nationalist vision of mass deportations, political repression, and violence toward enemies of the regime. 

This is to say nothing of Trump’s repeated attempts to undermine the electoral process, which are more brazen than even the Brooks Brothers Riot that helped steal the 2000 election for Bush. 

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The electoral college is an anti-democratic institution that allows about seven states to actually decide who will take the most powerful job in the entire world. 

It should be replaced with a simple popular vote, which is actually close to happening. But until it’s gone, vote-swapping is a great way to make it work for your interests, signaling dissatisfaction to Democrats without making it more likely that Trump serves another term. (Who knows, if vote-swapping actually helps keep Republicans out of the White House, it might accelerate the demise of the electoral college.)

The moment I decided to write about this, I felt immediate relief at having found something to do related to the presidential election I could feel good about. If you can, you should sign up to swap your vote too.