Dozens of Bay Area volunteers have just returned from a campaign trip to Reno, Nevada. Many are looking forward to returning to other swing states before the presidential election.
“I’m retired, so I thought, let’s go,” Seed the Vote volunteer Akilah Monifa told CBS News Bay Area.
Monifa returned from Nevada, where she knocked on the doors of undecided voters to encourage them to go to the polls and vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Most of them said they weren’t sure yet because they weren’t sure about Kamala. They were sure they didn’t want to vote for Trump,” she said.
Gen Fujioka is another Seed the Vote volunteer. He just returned from Nevada after working in that swing state for a few days.
“I can’t think of anything more important to do right now,” Fujioka told CBS News Bay Area. “I think a lot of people in the neighborhoods we’re talking about don’t necessarily feel safe or comfortable talking about politics.”
Seed the Vote currently has over 1,000 volunteers, and the organization’s goal is to have about 3,000 Bay Area volunteers. The plan is to vote in five swing states: Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
“This work is incredibly important for democracy because at the end of the day, there’s a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there,” said Emily Lee, executive director of Seed the Vote.
She said the organization’s volunteers knock on about 70 to 80 homes in those states every day.
“When the stakes are so high and the margins so small, we know that personal conversations can be the deciding factor in why undecided voters turn out to vote,” Lee said.
Volunteers said some of their candid conversations with undecided voters were emotional.
“There have been at least a few conversations where people were actually in tears and because they really cared,” Fujioka said.
“A lot of people told me that it was the first time that someone listened to them and didn’t try to argue with them, and that was the most important thing. So I didn’t just talk, I listened,” Monifa said.
