A List of Reasons Why People Don’t or Shouldn’t Vote

Why People Don't or

Shouldn't Vote

A top contender for the most idiotic mantra of democracy apologists is, “if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.” Just the opposite is true: those who do vote have no right to complain. The entire premise of democratic process is that everyone agrees to accept the outcome of the process—merely because it’s the outcome of the process.
If a person participates in and therefore assents to the democratic process, he has no basis to complain about the results. He has already conceded that “results” are legitimately determined by the process. He accepts the stipulation that, “whoever is elected to office by the process is the legitimate decision maker.” He can’t then say, “the results are only acceptable when I win.”
Voters sanction the ultimate actions of the government, not non-voters. As a voter a person is endorsing the belief that society should decide what to do by a popular vote which assigns and legitimizes dictatorial discretion and power. By voting you sanction all actions of the government, not just those you prefer. The conscientious non-voter, however, is saying, “I object to outcomes being decided in this manner, and therefore retain my right to denounce both the process and the outcome.”

– Trenton Fervor,

The Myth of American Democracy

There are both practical and philosophical reasons why people don’t vote, but the practical reasons are generally not what is of interest when asking the question of why should or shouldn’t a person vote. Philosophical reasons for not-voting address the political system’s immorality, contradiction, defectiveness, futility, deception, exploitation, dysfunction, and irrationality. In addition to the list below, chapter three of The Myth of American Democracy serves as a lengthy exposition on some of the problems of democracy which, in-and-of-themselves, provide substantial reason why voting is ridiculous.

(There is, however, a State-sponsored cult of blind patriotic fanaticism which supports the notion that people have a duty to vote, and that not voting makes a person in some way morally corrupt. Endorsing not-voting is received with disbelief, abhorrence, and disdain. It encounters an emotionally induced wave of offended disbelief, and the shock accorded heresy and anathema. Most citizens have been effectively insulated from an objective critique of the matter.)

Additional practical reasons:

Too busy, inconvenient, too difficult.
1. Too busy. Can not afford to take time off from work or school.
2. Lack of time. The voting lines are too long.
3. Forgetfulness.
4. Poor weather.
5. Inconvenient registration system.
6. Voting puts you on the roll for jury duty selection.

Unable to vote.
7. Illness or disability prevented getting to the polls.
8. Don’t have transportation to get to the polls.
9. Not registered or ineligible to vote.
10. Out of town on vacation or business trip.
11. Recently moved.
12. Don’t know how to vote.
13. Your faith precludes it. (Anabaptists, Mennonites, Amish, etcetera.)

Habit or Education.
14. Family upbringing.
15. Apathy. Indifference toward those things over which you have no meaningful influence.
16. Simply not interested in voting or politics.
17. Boredom or disgust with the political process and “Washington.”

People don’t vote (or shouldn’t vote) because…

Your vote is—practically speaking—worthless.
1. The value of an informed, well-considered, rational vote is exactly equal to that of an uninformed, impulsive, irrational vote.
2. Given election fraud and election system incompetence, it is far from clear that your vote will even be counted correctly.
3. It is statistically more likely that you will die in a fatal accident on your way to the polls, than that your vote will make any difference.
4. In any more-than-marginally-partisan election district, your vote has no possible chance of making a difference.

5. Unless a person lives in a “battle ground” state, his presidential vote is completely irrelevant.
6. It is not only mathematically impossible that your vote could matter, it is politically impossible as well. The system’s reaction to the presidency hanging on one vote would be overwhelming.
7. The closer the voting results are, the more that factors other than actual voting will begin to undermine or determine the outcome. Before it ever got to the point that your vote mattered, the incentive for covert manipulation or fraud would practically guarantee that representation of the actual vote count would be corrupted, or rejected as a publicly unacceptable outcome.
8. Whether you personally vote or don’t vote will make no difference in what the government actually does.
9. A voter has no way to control the political or legislative agenda.
10. Politicians make deceptive and empty promises. Supporting them assures you of nothing.
11. A candidate’s promises, and your expectations of them, will bear little relation to what he actually attempts or accomplishes. The politician will do whatever he wants regardless of what you thought you were supporting by voting for him. He knows nothing of you and does not particularly care to.
12. In most instances, even if your candidate wins, he will not be able to introduce or deliver his platform when in office. There is nothing to guarantee he will have any influence on the legislative agenda or live up to his campaign promises.
13. Any outcome, if it is politically significant to influential special-interest groups, will be contested or reversed in court within a year of the election or plebiscite.
14. Some issues are so toxic or politically charged that they are essentially un-addressable due to the dynamics of the system.
15. Being able to “remove from office” a politician with whom you disagree, is not the same as being able to reverse or mitigate his disagreeable actions.
16. Voting offers no meaningful choice or power. Not-voting avoids lending credence or sanction to the pretense that it does.

You have no desirable options.
17. The electoral choices are not differentiable or not meaningful.
18. No candidate is addressing or prioritizing the issues that primarily concern you.
19. You do not have the ability to support individual issues; you can only support a basket of issues which you had no part in formulating and which you may find disagreeable in particular aspects.
20. There is no candidate with whom you agree, or whom you feel comfortable supporting.
21. Voting for the “lesser of two evils” gives an “evil” candidate the impression he is supported.
22. Voting for a degenerate politician because he is the “lesser of two evils” encourages the system to continue running degenerates for office.
23. There is no “none-of-the-above” or “re-open nomination” option which is tallied and reported to indicate dissent.
24. Neither of the two political parties has any interest in enforcing the constitutional limitations on the government. Supporting either of them is a betrayal of constitutional language and principles.
25. The skills required to get elected are different than the skills required to lead or legislate.
26. You have no desire to impose your preferences on others, just as you insist they do not impose theirs on you.
27. You don’t wish to be stereotyped according to how people view the limited alternatives offered in any given election.
28. You are concerned about the distorted way your vote will be spun and used by politicians and the media.
29. You have no desire to create a psychological investment in a party by voting for them and then experiencing the loss of face, damage to self-image, sense of betrayal, or resentment, attendant with them producing contrary to your expectations or in conflict with your values.

You feel that you or the public are uninformed or unqualified to vote.
30. Candidates are intentionally vague or equivocal about most of their positions.
31. Much of the information that is provided to the public in political arguments is false, misleading, or incomplete.
32. It is too expensive, time consuming, or difficult to find reliable information about candidates and issues.
33. You do not want to be inundated and indoctrinated by the political agitprop pollution masquerading as “information.”
34. Acquiring the knowledge to make a reasonably informed political decision is, in most instances, irrational. The opportunity costs of gathering and vetting the information is greater than the expected value of having the information to inform your decision.
35. Even where a person goes through the time, expense, and difficulty of becoming informed, this does not mean his informed preferences exist among the political options on offer.
36. Human beings are generally incompetent at identifying correct political claims. Very often proposed solutions to social problems will exacerbate them or cause new problems.
37. It is nearly impossible to predict how a politician will be able to (or will) influence actual policy, or how that policy will influence actual outcomes.
38. The political dialogue does not involve hearing the best formulated arguments from all positions and impartially considering them all to arrive at a rational conclusion. The information the electorate receives is scant, parochial, and often radically biased.
39. Modern government is so large that it is impossible for voters to be adequately informed about its operations. Voters are unable to intelligently exercise control over policy or enforce political accountability.

The election process is flawed, manipulable, and untrustworthy.
40. People are less likely to vote if they lack confidence in the voting process, if they don’t trust the government, or if the government has a history of being unresponsive to the public mood. These factors bias turnout and results.
41. The system is extremely unresponsive. The simple choice of selecting a candidate does not allow voters to convey the specificity, dependence, ordering, or intensity of their preferences.
42. The electorate is largely ignorant, impressionable, and easily manipulated by the State.
43. The system is significantly vulnerable to manipulation and fraud. Its security, accuracy, and reliability are doubtful and disconcerting.
44. The opportunity for vote fraud is widespread. In most locations, voters do not have to authenticate who they are or whether they are legally entitled to vote. (e.g., There are thousands of dead voters listed on the voter rolls in most states, and some voting districts have more people registered to vote than actually live there.)
45. Any voting system that is not required to authenticate who is voting, is intrinsically and astonishingly illegitimate.
46. It is impossible for an individual voter to personally follow the custody of his vote after he records it. There is no guarantee that it is correctly accounted for.
47. Millions of ballots are disqualified in each national election.
48. The design of voting systems themselves, influences or even dictates the outcomes. (e.g., The location of the polling facilities, which facilities have the most voting machines or best convenience, and even the location of the candidates’ names on the ballet, affects the outcome.)
49. Incumbency bestows an advantage based on name recognition alone. (When people don’t know who to vote for, they vote for a familiar sounding name.)
50. People agree more often with physically attractive candidates. Attractive candidates receive more votes than unattractive ones.
51. As the opportunity cost of voting declines, more poorly-informed people find it rational to vote. “Get out the vote” efforts generally bring in relatively more-ignorant voters.
52. The general public does not place a high value on epistemic rationality—on forming its beliefs in truth-conducive ways. Logical fallacies, contradictions, dogma, delusion, etcetera, are common.

The system is a sham, and controlled by other factors.
53. The system does not permit you to say “this is what I consent to, nothing more, and nothing less.” Your consent to whatever the system produces is considered a system premise, and there is no option to “withhold” consent. In other words, the system is nonconsensual.
54. Consent entails the latitude to refuse consent. If a person has no option but to accept a matter, it is disingenuous to say that he has consented to it.
55. Elections are not intended as an opportunity to change the government. They are to harness public frustration, anger, and revolutionary impulse. Elections are intended to change the electorate.
56. Elections are a diversion which do not alter the power of government or affect even a small portion of its vast apparatus.
57. Elections rotate personalities, not the ideas and paradigms that inhabit the establishment. The system is nearly impervious to any actor within it.
58. Elections are controlled by special interests and establishment power-brokers.
59. The US election system is defined, dominated, and controlled by two self-interested political parties. This duopoly has a vested interest in maintaining the system such that they retain power and exclude alternatives. They are not “participants within the system,” they have in effect taken ownership of the system and control it to protect their status.

Politics is disgusting and annoying.
60. The political environment is shameful, disgusting, and annoying.
61. Political material is blatantly deceptive and patently manipulative.
62. Political tactics and advertising are sickening and maddening.
63. The dialog and debate are pathetic and divisive.
64. The system is embarrassing.
65. Your dignity will not allow you to participate in a dialog pervaded by indecency, deception, and manipulation.
66. You have no desire to invest in electing someone you will be offended by, ashamed of, or embarrassed by later.
67. The system makes you feel “dirty.” You don’t want to be associated with the putrid, disgusting system in any way.
68. Getting involved with politics produces disillusionment, disappointment, and demoralization, and feelings of alienation and powerlessness.

Philosophical objection to process or government authority.
69. The fundamental principle of democratic governance—that confrontational, contradictory ideologies can be brought together and “compromised” into a common, coherent solution—is absurd.
70. It is ridiculous and offensive to suppose a person’s views regarding government and authority can be adequately expressed or represented by a simple two-choice vote.
71. Voting is a recognition of the power of the State, and the State’s history is one of accepting no bounds to its power. You are not permitted to distinguish which State powers you recognize and which you do not. The State interprets sanction in any form as unlimited.
72. The system is tyrannical and illegitimate. There is no recognized right to withhold consent, abstain, or to refrain from supporting ideals that you object to.
73. The State’s power relies on its claim to legitimacy, and its legitimacy is supported by citizens participating in its election processes.
74. A vote is not just a vote for a particular candidate, but also a sanction of the political process in general, and of the legitimacy of the State.
75. Voting encourages others to consider the State an accepted and morally legitimate authority.
76. By voting you are implicitly agreeing to the premise that whichever party wins, they have the right to try to impose their agenda on everyone else using the force of the State.
77. The basic function of the political process is the coercion of others. Voting in an environment of compulsory government is essentially an act of aggression.
78. Voting entails endorsing the installation of a regime over others, which they have not assented to, or which they have in fact specifically rejected.
79. Voting is the facade on a system which engages in systematic coercion, aggression, and violence. It insulates people psychologically from the essential nature of government actions which amount to plundering and oppressing.
80. The State has already aggrandized itself and usurped authority beyond its useful or legitimate scope. People seeking government office are almost universally intent upon making government more intrusive and comprehensive.
81. It is not in the State’s interest to educate its citizens about the virtues of limited government, and (of course) it does not. The State employs its power to grow itself.
82. Voting facilitates the confiscation of life, liberty, and property from other people.
83. Voting makes you accountable for the acts of the government—including when it wastes, lies, oppresses, tyrannizes, steals, destroys, maims, and kills.
84. The political right to aggress is a legal fiction without foundation in moral law. Voting presumes authority and rights you do not legitimately have over others. You can not delegate authority you do not yourself possess.
85. Seeking benefits via government, is seeking to rob some other person anonymously. The government can offer nothing but that which it has confiscated from someone else.
86. Voting is interpreted by the system as implicitly giving others the “right” to loot or destroy you, and it consequently forces upon you the obligation to try to defend against their deprivations. It stands morality on its head.
87. You object to the political establishment having the power to unilaterally dictate the terms of debate.
88. Non-voting denies the system the pretence that its depravity is perpetuated with your consent.

General cynicism.
89. Lack of confidence in the system’s reliability, accuracy, and security.
90. Disillusionment with the entire political process.
91. Belief that voting won’t change anything important.
92. Belief that the system is an enormous sham.
93. No confidence in government solutions.
94. Objection to governmental authority, and refusal to be seen as implicitly endorsing it by voting.
95. It would be galling to feel that—in voting—you had contributed to giving the establishment the impression their sham is working, or that you have fallen for or assented to their deceptions.

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The above material was excerpted and or adapted from the book

“THE MYTH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY:

The Deification of Democratic Governance and the Subversion of Individual Liberty”

available at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and other booksellers worldwide.

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