Why the Ceasefire Protest Movement Is Good for Democracy and Potentially for Democrats in November

Although the candidates are locked in, the stakes in the remaining 2024 presidential primaries are still gigantic. Indeed, the health and evolution of American democracy may hang in the balance.

That’s because of the phenomenon of protest voting this year, as primary voters increasingly use their ballots to demand a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

In previous noncompetitive primaries where the favorite was a shoo-in, the protest vote was about 7 percent. This year, as it became clear that more than 1 in 10 primary voters were casting protest votes for a ceasefire, the Biden administration “freaked out” and changed course.

A majority of likely voters polled, including 76 percent of Democrats, have consistently called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, but their demands have gone unheeded by US policymakers. Indeed, on February 20, the US vetoed a widely supported UN resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

Being deaf to voters’ foreign policy preferences is nothing new; it’s business as usual. The Constitution does not include national referendums on political issues, or any formal mechanism for recording voter preferences on political issues in national elections, except for candidate voting. As scholars of democracy have long observed, “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a tiny, almost zero, statistically insignificant impact on public policy.”

But that pattern began to change on Feb. 27, when more than 100,000 protest voters in Michigan’s presidential primary checked “not committed” on their ballots, so delegates to the national convention would be free to ask for a cease fire A week later, the Biden administration began calling for a six-week ceasefire. Then, as the March primaries continued to garner a larger-than-expected number of protest votes, the United States dropped its opposition to a UN ceasefire resolution, allowing to approve

These are Pyrrhic victories for the Palestinians as civilian casualties continue to mount in Gaza. On the other hand, the protest vote may also be part of the reason why President Biden is so publicly at odds with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and why Israel’s planned ground attack has not yet occurred in Rafah, with its massive refugee camp. It may also have played a role in developments adjacent to Gaza, including Israel scaling back its counterattack on Iran under pressure from the US and other allies, and the US considering sanctions on an Israeli military unit occupying the West Bank. While former President Trump pledges his support for Israel, Biden appears poised to pressure Israel to moderate its attacks in hopes of regaining support from protest voters.

These signals may or may not have saved lives in Gaza. But they are important and could still have far-reaching consequences because they show that protest voters are accomplishing something extremely rare in modern American history: moving the needle on US foreign policy.

The change began with the New Hampshire primary in January, when a small group of grassroots organizers mounted the Vote Cease-fire (VCF) campaign, which demonstrated the concept that primary ballots could be used creatively to register the demand for a ceasefire. Since Biden wasn’t officially on the ballot there, voters had to write-in candidates anyway. From there, it was an achievable step to get voters to write “ceasefire” instead of the candidate’s name. Starting just a week before the primary and operating on a shoestring budget, VCF convinced 1,500 voters to do so and got state election officials to count and report those ballots.

The idea that primary ballots could be used to convey the cease-fire demand struck a chord, and VCF received inquiries from groups across the country. Local groups in some states with write-in options on their ballots launched their own cease-fire campaigns. In other states, advocates found different techniques. The Listen Michigan campaign got 13.2 percent of Democratic primary voters to mark “not committed” on their ballots. This surprising result spawned a national “no compromise” campaign. Other variations emerged, such as voting “no instructions” in Wisconsin or “leaving it blank” in New York.

What they all have in common is the creative use of the primary vote to demand a timely, permanent and meaningful ceasefire in Gaza. Together, they are turning the disaffection and sense of powerlessness felt by many primary voters as their support is presumed at the polls while their demand for a ceasefire is ignored into a sense of agency and power to make a difference. This represents a historic shift in US politics, and perhaps in US democracy.

More needs to be done to translate the demand for a ceasefire into action. Protest vote campaigns in the upcoming primaries in Maryland and Oregon will continue to pressure Biden to secure a ceasefire, not during the Democratic National Convention in August, or in November, when tens of thousands more Palestinians could die , but now

While this poses some risks for the Biden campaign, it is also an opportunity. Widespread protest voting is a sign of disaffection, but also of how voters expect to be heard. If Biden is sensitive and effective in demanding a ceasefire and preventing a wider war, he will win back the vast majority of them.

Either way, the ongoing protest voting movement is reinvigorating the 2024 presidential primaries. As far as the race for the nomination is concerned, these elections are mostly alienating and irrelevant formalities. But as laboratories for showing how voter preferences can affect policy, they are now vital exercises in building a stronger, more direct American democracy.

Alan Minsky is the executive director of Progressive Democrats of America. Stephen Kent is president of public relations practice KentCom LLC.