In a bathroom stall, a simple message: Vote Harris. No one will know. [View all]

Source: Washington Post


Women in swing states, Republican strongholds and Democratic cities are leaving notes for other women to see, encouraging them to vote their minds and reminding them that their ballots are secret. (Jill Nash; Olivia Dreizen Howell; Jenny Dreizen)

November 3, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EST


One woman stuck a note to the door of her hair salon in North Carolina. Another pressed it onto the back of a tampon box in Arkansas. A third hung one on a mirror of a women’s bathroom at an Ohio airport. “Woman to woman,” the note read. “No one sees your vote at the polls.”

In swing states and Republican strongholds, on college campuses and in sports arenas, sticky notes have appeared reminding women that their votes are confidential — kept private even and especially from the men in their lives.

The origins of the trend are unclear, but the co-founder of Women for Harris-Walz, a grassroots group supporting the vice president’s campaign, says her members have been sticking notes in bathrooms and similar spaces for months, encouraging women to vote their own minds and reminding them that their ballot is secret.

Now, in the final days of the presidential race, what started as a whisper campaign by women and for women has become the subject of a controversial 30-second ad, been amplified by Democratic juggernauts such as Michelle Obama and drawn furious backlash from the right.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/03/harris-wife-trump-husband-ad/