Are There Good Reasons Not to Vote?

By Michael De Dora

I told several people over the past couple of days that I did not intend to vote in the 2010 New York State midterm elections, which were held yesterday. Because of this, I was called wrong, hypocritical, and a disappointment. You might think similarly. How could someone like me not vote? There's no reason not to vote. Let me be clear: as it turns out, I did in fact vote yesterday. I reviewed my reasons and found them wanting. I do not consider it a good thing that I considered not voting, in the sense that it is probably desirable to have people voting. But I did see somewhat compelling reasons to consciously decide not to vote.

Before discussing these reasons, we need to understand what voting is, and, thus, what it entails. Voting, at least today, is the act of casting your support for a candidate (and thus, not casting for some opponent/s). It includes picking one among several candidates from different parties and perhaps also voting yes or no on referendums and propositions. In the broader framework of our democratic government, voting is perhaps the most direct way in which citizens can exert their power over governance – by electing officials to represent them in the halls of power, and voting out lawmakers who do not.

Given this definition, it seems inherent to voting that the voter has good information about the person for whom he or she is voting. This is the first reason why I leaned toward not voting, and why many others do not vote: I just haven’t been paying much attention. I read the news everyday and know where I generally stand. But I simply have not spent time reading about the candidates and their specific proposals and positions, so I considered abstaining. This is not presented as a noble reason. Rather, it is a recognition that my focus was on my own lack of knowledge, which made me uncomfortable about voting in the first place. Only after spending a good portion of the last two days researching candidates did I feel that I had a sufficient level of baseline knowledge to vote. I still didn't feel entirely comfortable voting, but I felt informed enough.

Ron Lindsay recently wrote about this very issue on his blog:

“Any idiot can run for office. Some might argue that is one of the weaknesses of our democracy. But it’s only a weakness if the idiots win the election. That’s where you come in. If you have not done so already, please vote tomorrow.”

The sentiment is agreeable, but the problem is that the idiots are in the voting booths, too. Just as lawmakers ought to be informed, so should voters. Do we really want to encourage people to vote even if they are not informed? This reminds me of the Glenn Beck quote, “Believe in something! Even if it’s wrong!” This is not to say the information isn’t out there, or that we should value not absorbing it. In an ideal world, we would all learn as much as we can, and have the ability to judge the information at hand. But that is not the real world.

(I should add that before I spent the necessary time reading up on the election, some friends argued that I should just go and vote along party line, in this case Democrats. But it seems outlandish to think, given that I knew all of their positions, that I would support Democrats over every other candidate.)

Another reason I considered not voting is that many of the big races were already decided. Notice that this reason is less about the person not voting and more about the system. Why vote when it won’t make a difference? Consider the governor’s race between Andrew Cuomo and Carl Paladino: Cuomo was up 63 to 26. Both Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand were leading comfortably in the polls.

But then again, many races are not yet decided, which is why I abandoned this reason as well. For instance, Democrat Eric Schneiderman and Republican Dan Donovan were neck-and-neck in the attorney general race; and the same goes for Democrat incumbent Thomas DiNapolo and Republican challenger Harry Wilson in the battle for the state comptroller seat. And then there are Congressional and local elections, which are perhaps more important – at least more influential – to day-to-day living. Nor have I mentioned a referendum on whether to allow corporations to secretly donate to campaigns (roundup of early NY election results here). So it would be incomplete to look at just the one or two big races and forget the other races and issues (now, if all the races were decided, I might still have a reason to stay at home).

The last reason I considered for not voting is that I do not like the candidates – a common claim from many others. If one does not feel an official would represent their interests sufficiently, why vote for said official? Why should someone care enough to support someone who he or she doesn’t like? Notice again this reason is less about the person and more about the system, which is supposedly not offering the voter a choice of enough high quality candidates.

So long as the race is close, however, I think we ought to consider voting for someone whom we don’t think is great, in order to keep out of office a candidate we like even less. You might not like Barack Obama, but how do you feel about Sarah Palin? You might not like Harry Reid, but how about Sharron Angle?

But a tougher question is this: what is one to do when races are decided and one does not like the candidates? Consider again the race for New York governor. Friends tell me they will vote for a third-party candidate like Howie Hawkins, running for governor under the Green Party. This would ensure the Green Party stays on the ballot next election instead of having to collect signatures. This seems admirable, at least supporting the presence of a more diverse political landscape when faced with a choice between two major party candidates who you do not support. But these candidates don’t exist in all races; and my friends also must think Hawkins aligns with their positions in some significant way or they couldn't vote for him in good conscience. They wouldn’t vote for a far right wing third-party candidate for the sake of diversity.

The problem is left unsolved -- I side with weighing in -- but the point is that many people find voting of the utmost importance not necessarily for good reasons. I think some people are so automatically opposed to not voting because voting is the quintessential example of civic engagement. While I appreciate the importance of voting, voting should not be the sole or even main marker of one’s political activism. Our civic duty is not just to vote, but also to be informed as we vote. And more broadly, it is to be informed and active in our polity, which requires more than just showing up to the polls every couple of years. I think our concept of civic engagement should take into account many other things: one’s career choices, charitable giving, volunteering, level of engagement in learning about the issues, and life commitments. The entirety of one’s character and efforts ought to be examined before coming to any conclusions about his or her degree of civil engagement.

So the next time your friend says he or she is not voting, perhaps you ought to listen to their reasons before dismissing them out of hand. You might actually find they have decent reasons to not want to participate. And maybe this essay will help you convince them otherwise.