These People Are Hiding Whom They're Actually Voting For

Earlier this week, while stumping for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in a Detroit suburb, former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney made the case for Harris to suburban Republican and independent women.

At one point, she assured them that no one ― not your husband, not your family ― will know who you vote for. 

“If you’re at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody,” Cheney said as she sat side-by-side with Harris. “And there will be millions of Republicans who do that on Nov. 5.” 

That’s true: Whether or not you voted is public record, but how you voted in local, state or national elections is kept a secret; there’s no official way to search for how someone voted.

This election cycle is so heated and hyperpartisan, some people say they’re planning to do just what Cheney suggested: Hide whom they’re really voting for from their spouses and family.

Certainly, in worst-case scenarios, there are people in controlling or abusive relationships who have serious fears about how their spouse will respond if they vote for candidate A rather than the favored candidate B.

But most people we spoke to for this story said they’re voting their conscience while keeping it a secret ― or in some cases, outright lying ― just to avoid awkward or tense conversations in mixed political marriages or families. 

That’s true for Avery, a 30-year-old veteran from eastern Florida, who’s voting for Harris this time rather than Trump. (Like others in this piece, Avery asked to use her first name only to protect her privacy.)

“As a veteran, I take great offense to the insurrection he incited on Jan. 6,” she said. “And with [Harris] and Tim Walz, I think they’re respectable, intelligent people and I agree with their policies. When I watch them speak, I don’t feel embarrassed for our country.” 

She’s not letting her husband or his pro-Trump immigrant family know her voting plans, though, to avoid any unnecessary family drama. 

“My husband would probably just roll his eyes if he knew I was voting for Harris,” Avery said. “The rest, though, would most likely spout some silly conspiracy theories and try to change my mind.”

Her advice to others in the same boat is similar to Cheney’s: Do what you feel is the best for yourself and your family, and feel confident in making that choice. 

“No one has the right to tell you who to vote for, regardless of their relationship to you,” Avery said. “If you’re a woman with an abusive or controlling husband, do what you have to do to cast the vote for the candidate you desire. No one needs to know who that is.”

Sulman Aziz Mirza is also secretly voting for Harris, but his circumstances are much different. 

“My wife is anti-Kamala because of the whole Palestine genocide going on, and she’s made this the only issue for her voting,” he told HuffPost before saying that he understands where his spouse is coming from. 

“I’d love for [Palestinian rights and the war in Gaza] to be the only issue that decides the vote, but realize that it’s not,” said Mirza, who lives in a suburb just south of Washington, D.C., “and it’s not like the opposition is exactly pro-Palestine, so Harris has my support, though I would love to see some pro-PAL support from her.”

Mirza thinks his wife will most likely end up not voting, and he knows his Muslim family and friend circle is just as conflicted. 

“Most of our friends are Muslims and they only see dead Palestinians and blame it fully on Biden/Harris, when it’s been going on for decades,” he said. “It’s a very complex issue but definitely gets arguments going when we’re together.”

Robby, a 34-year-old from Los Angeles, said he’s been saved from any awkward “Wait, who are you voting for?” conversations with his wife thanks to living in deep-blue California. 

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to vote for Chase Oliver, the Libertarian candidate, but if we were in a swing state and [I] felt my vote counted, I really don’t know what I would do,” he told HuffPost. 

Robby sides with Harris on social issues, but fiscally he’s more in line with Trump. His wife is adamant about her vote for Harris.

“I know if I were to actually vote for Trump, which I wouldn’t condemn anyone for doing, if I told my wife I voted for him, she would resent me,” he said. 

Justin, a 29-year-old from the Pacific Northwest, is quietly voting for Harris “primarily because she isn’t Trump.”

Justin identifies as an independent (though he tends to vote Democratic), and to keep the peace, he tells his conservative grandparents and parents he’s independent or simply that he “doesn’t vote-and-tell.” 

If his family starts ranting about the candidate he’s secretly voting for, he’ll usually join in, though. After all, he said, “most of the time we don’t have great candidates, so it’s easy to complain about either candidate.”

The only time Justin outright lies about his voting selection is to his left-leaning friends the few times he’s voted Republican. They’d be surprised to hear it because Justin says he’s a bisexual, “flamboyant tree-hugging man who supports female reproductive rights and hates overfunding the military [and] tends to vote Democratic.”

“Usually, I do vote similarly to [my friends], but the way they talk about people who vote Republican makes me feel terrible, and they’ve said outright that they wouldn’t be friends with someone who votes Republican,” he told HuffPost.

James, a 23-year-old from Southern Michigan, isn’t telling his Republican family whom he’s voting for, either — especially not his parents, who are voting for Trump as they have in the last two elections.

“We haven’t had a direct conversation about it this year, but I think they assume I’ll vote for Trump, too,” he said. “They’ve said things like, ‘We need every vote for Trump,’ and I believe they’d be upset if they knew I wasn’t.”

If the topic came up directly, James said he’d lie and say he’s choosing Trump just to avoid conflict. 

The question on everyone’s minds: Could “secret” Trump or Harris voters determine the election? 

After the 2016 and 2020 election cycles ― especially 2016 ―  there was a lot of post-election talk about the segment of voters who were uncomfortable admitting they were voting for Trump beforehand. 

A post-2016 study out of the Columbia Business School found that Trump had won the majority of “secret” voters when he faced Hillary Clinton. The “secret” Trump voters outnumbered those who concealed their support for Clinton by a 2-to-1 margin.

Robert C. Cahaly, a pollster and strategist at the conservative-leaning Trafalgar Group, thinks people may be underestimating support for Trump again this time around. 

“This year we’ve already measured a significant hidden Trump vote, but the reasoning has changed,” he said. “This time it is a lot less about being shy and more about being afraid of being targeted based upon their answer. They fear data collection and retribution or cancellation if their name ends up on the list as a Trump supporter.”  

In his therapy offices in Manhattan and D.C, Jonathan Alpert said he’s seeing a lot of shy or closeted Trump voters who are keeping their votes close to their chests because they don’t want to be judged.

“One patient talked to me about how everyone in her cooking class just assumes she is a liberal and hates Trump,” Alpert told HuffPost. “In fact, she is not a liberal and doesn’t hate Trump. She supports him, but she sits in silence as the rest of the class rants about Trump.” 

“There are many similar stories I’ve heard over the past few months like that,” he said.

The psychotherapist hasn’t heard any clients say they’re closeted Harris supporters, but then again, he works in two very liberal city centers.  

There are probably just as many secret Harris voters we’re not hearing from, though, said Sam Wang, a professor of neuroscience at Princeton University and the director of the Electoral Innovation Lab, a policy and research group that uses statistics, science and law to analyze election systems.

Wang noted that the gender gap this year is the largest on record: A survey released by USA Today and Suffolk University on Monday found that Trump leads Harris by 16% with men nationally. Harris has an almost identical lead with female voters, who favor the Democrat by 17%.

“The obvious reason for that gap is reproductive rights, since Dobbs was a Supreme Court decision by Republican-appointed judges, and most Republican legislators are open to a nationwide ban on abortion,” Wang said.

Online, many wonder if secret Harris voters married to MAGA partners are more numerous than we may realize. What does Wang think?

“Any household with both men and women in it has a larger chance than ever of having party preferences that are in conflict,” he said. “Liz Cheney is correct that men and women may be better off keeping their vote confidential.”