Dozens of Bay Area residents canvassing in swing states for VP Harris
Dozens of volunteers from the Bay Area just returned from a canvassing trip to Reno, Nevada, and many are looking forward to returning to other swing states before the presidential elections.
"I'm retired, so I'm like let's go," Akilah Monifa, a volunteer with Seed the Vote, told CBS News Bay Area.
Monifa returned from Nevada where she was door knocking on undecided voters' homes to encourage them to go to the polls and vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
"Most of them were saying that they were undecided because they weren't certain about Kamala. They were certain that they didn't want to vote for Trump," she said.
Gen Fujioka is another volunteer with Seed the Vote who just returned from Nevada, after spending a few days canvassing in that swing state.
"I can't think of anything more important to do in this moment," Fujioka told CBS News Bay Area. "Many I think in some of the neighborhoods that we're talking about don't feel safe necessarily or comfortable talking about politics."
Seed the Vote currently has more than 1,000 volunteers, and the organization's goal is to have about 3,000 volunteers from the Bay Area. The plan is to canvass in five swing states: Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
"This work is so important to democracy because at the end of the day, there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there," Emily Lee, executive director of Seed the Vote, said.
She said the organization's volunteers aim to knock on about 70 to 80 doors daily in those swing states.
"When the stakes are this high and the margins are this close, we know that face-to-face conversations can be the deciding reason why undecided voters are going to go cast a ballot," Lee said.
Volunteers recounted that some of their candid conversations with the undecided voters have been emotional.
"At least a couple of conversations where people have been in tears actually and because they care about this," Fujioka said.
"Many people told me it was the first time that someone had listened to them, and not tried to argue with them and that was the big thing. So, I didn't just talk, I listened," Monifa said.
