Portland Magazine
October 21, 2020
by Danielle Centoni
SOME ANSWER THE call of the wild. Tate Harris ’23 answers the call of the wildfires. And search and rescue operations. Oh, and the COVID-testing crisis too. As a volunteer member and certified trainer in the Sacramento fire department’s civilian emergency response team, Harris never hesitates to lend a hand whenever needed. And this November’s election is no different.
“There is a national shortage of poll workers,” says Harris, a sophomore in UP’s School of Nursing. “They’ve traditionally been senior citizens, but due to COVID-19 that’s not happening, so it’s really important for young people to get involved.”
After learning of the shortage and the need for bilingual workers, Harris, who’s fluent in Spanish, immediately applied. “Even though mail-in voting is standard in my state (California), not everybody prefers to vote by mail. There’s so much weighing on this election that people don’t want to take their chances.”
A shortage of poll workers means a shortage of polling places—one more hurdle (or excuse) that could keep people from voting. And Harris is doing everything possible to make sure no one who’s eligible has an excuse not to vote—and that includes becoming a one-person get-out-the-vote campaign.
“There’s a bipartisan app called Vote with Me. You upload your contacts, and it’ll show you the elections they voted in, which is public record,” Harris says. “I get in touch with those folks and talk to them about voting. I do it in a party-neutral way. I’m not trying to push an agenda. But it’s kind of surprising how often people are very politically active on social media but haven’t voted in 10 years.”
Harris says people usually claim they were too busy, but the worst is when they say they didn’t think their vote mattered. “Even if it feels like nothing comes of voting, it’s important to put our choice out there,” says Harris. “It’s a record of where we stand.”
After growing up with a politically active mom, tagging along on door-to-door campaigning, this is the first year Harris, who’s also running for vice president of ASUP, will finally be old enough to vote in a presidential election. “As a trans person, it feels especially dire that I vote and get people to vote right now. I need to know I literally did everything I could.”
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