On Oct. 7, dozens of protesters gathered on the corner of Soto Street and Cesar Chavez Avenue to mark the anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel that sparked an all-out war in Gaza.
The crowd marched through the busy intersection, some wearing keffiyehs, traditional Arab headdresses. They waved Palestinian flags and held hand-painted signs calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East.
Sol Márquez carried her newborn daughter while holding a banner that read “From Aztlan to Palestine.” The Boyle Heights resident said President Biden’s handling of the conflict was enough to distance herself from politicians in power and those seeking the presidency this November.
For her, neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump are an option.
“I’m just not feeling it. I just can’t bring myself to lift up my pen and put it on a piece of paper for either genocide or fascism,” Márquez said, referring to her views of the presidential candidates. “I can’t do it.”
Márquez is not alone. Thousands of dissatisfied voters across the country share her outlook. For some, it’s about immigration or abortion rights. Others are more concerned about foreign policy and have aligned with the “uncommitted” movement critical of the Biden administration’s policy toward Israel and its war in Gaza.
Leading up to the primaries, a grassroots movement that began in Michigan urged voters to vote “uncommitted” to pressure Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and end U.S. funding and arms transfers to Israel. That movement soon spread across U.S. states, where more than 700,000 voters cast ballots in the Democratic primaries by choosing “uncommitted” options. Others protested through blank ballots, write-ins or votes for other candidates.
In September, leaders of The Uncommitted National Movement, a pro-Palestinian anti-war group, refused to endorse Harris, citing her unwillingness to mark a shift in policy, but still opposed a Trump presidency.
While an “uncommitted” option will not appear on general election ballots in California (one person qualified as a write-in for U.S. president), many voters have pledged not to back either presidential candidate.
Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College, considers the war in Gaza as the main driver of dissatisfied voters across the country. She said the “uncommitted” movement may have parallels to the “anti-war” vote during America’s war with Vietnam.
“It appears like young voters in particular just say that these rules don’t work for us, and there is this energy and sense amongst younger voters that they see the system as inherently flawed, and they’re ready to demonstrate their vote in new ways,” Sadhwani said.
That was how Boyle Heights resident Gabe Quiroz felt during the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. He said Biden’s response to the George Floyd uprisings four years ago didn’t align with his stance on police accountability.
“A lot of people were asking for real changes in the way we do policing in the United States. And I feel like Biden didn’t even listen to that. He said he would do a lot of things and, if anything, he gave more money to the police,” Quiroz said.
Now, the 29-year-old has committed to not voting for either candidate, despite his fears that a Trump presidency would lead to further erosion of immigrant rights and unabated racist rhetoric from the right.
Sadhwani suggests that if voters choose to vote for a third-party candidate or none at all in a form of protest, they may inadvertently deliver a win to Trump in some states.
For Xochitl Palomera, who has always voted Democrat, that possibility is not enough to convince her to back Harris. Palomera considers a vote for the Democratic Party today “would be voting for genocide,” and denounced the United States’ role in supplying Israel with billions of dollars in fiscal and military aid.
While the 39-year-old Eastside educator would prefer to keep Trump out of the Oval Office, she doesn’t trust the Electoral College as the final say in who wins the presidency over the American people.
“Our voice doesn’t really matter when it comes to choosing the president, which is why I’ve decided to stop voting. Why am I going to participate in a system that is corrupt and that is a farce?” Palomera said. She said she still votes in local elections and feels that her vote has more impact locally than it does nationally.
In a Democratic stronghold such as California, Sadhwani said an uncommitted vote for a presidential candidate might not have a big effect, but a significant number of uncommitted votes may be the deciding factor in the election in key battleground states like Georgia, Pennsylvania or Michigan. It’s something she says should be a “big concern” for Harris and Democrats.
Sadhwani said this election is representative of a shift of demographic change in the country and that civic engagement will be key in setting the stage for a new era of democracy nationwide.
“This is really a turning point in the United States, regardless of the outcome of the election.
To me, what’s on the ballot in so many ways, is the future of our multiracial democracy, and whether or not we’ll actually even have one,” Sadhwani said. “How we vote this time really sets the stage for how the nation enters this period of multiracial democracy.”
