Long-time readers know I have some fairly unconventional views on voting. Some might say repugnant—coming from those who have a faith-based concept of how voting works. I find stubborn innumeracy repugnant; so we’re even.
To remind you of a few of my views:
Most shouldn’t vote because they are not well informed enough to do so responsibly.
Your vote makes no difference to the outcome in virtually every election you will be confronted with.
The way people view voting wrongly leads them to believe their role and responsibilities are completed once they exit the booth. In large part this is because of the divisive, oppositional nature of today’s politics. A Flight 93, most-important-election-in-our-time point of view is not just wrong; it is destructive with compromise as the first victim.
Election day approaches (next week) where I certainly welcome a blue wave of Democratic success—never thought I’d say that, but here we are. With all their many, enormous flaws, we need something (Democrats in this case) to stop or slow down our despicable president.
Is wanting this pushback against Trump through the democratic process contradictory to my views on voting? No, and here is why.
There are good reasons to vote in contrast to the important good reasons not to. (see lists below)
Any one person choosing not to vote in no way invalidates the general process. You cannot affect the outcome of even a medium/small-sized election either way—voting or not voting. This is one reason why the declarative statement “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain” is completely stupid. It is utter nonsense. That’s like saying if you didn’t drive today, you can’t complain about the traffic caused by bad road management.
Advocacy for good voting as well as the democratic process does not depend upon your voting and certainly does not justify bad voting. This is another reason why the implied “If you did vote, you can complain” is totally erroneous. That’s like saying only if you did choose to drive today, can you complain about the traffic caused by bad road management.
Partial lists of why and why not to vote starting with the negative.
Why Not To Vote:
You cannot affect the outcome of the election. Yet the act of voting is not free. Your time is valuable including your time to research and make an informed vote. This militates strongly against voting.
Voting lends credence to the politics surrounding the given election, and those politics are bad. More importantly, our policies are bad with our candidates choices commensurate. The lesser of evils is still evil. Abstention has value.
You are rationally ignorant (as you should be) about almost all policies and politicians. As such, the responsible thing to do is stay home from the polls.
Why To Vote:
Good participation in democracy is vital for a democracy to succeed. The word “good” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, of course. As I alluded to above, voting is not sufficient for this success. Individual voting is not necessary either. But some voting is necessary, and voting itself is sufficient for just the act of democracy to be fulfilled. Still, we have to look beyond just the act of voting for any meaningful success beyond just completing an election. David Friedman is insightful here on the differences between what people believe democracy is achieving—incentive versus selection. I very much come down on incentive while realizing how weak that incentive effect can be as well as how it can become corrupted.
We should advocate for good policies, and this includes voting well. David Henderson has made the point that it is hypocritical and probably destructive to the outcome to advocate others vote a certain way and then not do so oneself. There are very real costs to voting that are certainly not covered by any realistic expectation of individually changing the outcome. To ask others to bear this cost but not do so as well seems unethical.
Voting can bring one satisfaction if not joy. Again, David Henderson makes a point supporting this contra Bryan Caplan. To be fair, Caplan’s position is that voting is a net negative for him, and I think this is not just substantial. It is a principled stand against the politics and policies of the world around us.
Just as abstention has value, so too does one more small voice in the wilderness speaking out. A vote is a meek voice to be sure. But it is still a voice. When well placed, such as for a minority, independent candidate or for an oppositional point of view including as a proxy against the status quo (e.g., anti-Trump), it does help a worthy cause.
In summary, voting is complicated including the cases for and against it. There are many more people in the electorate who should feel guilty having voted than their are who should feel guilty having refrained from doing so. This is both for why they did it (illogical reasons) and more importantly how they did it (poorly informed or inappropriately motivated).
Substacks mentioned: