Quote of the Day: Voting is Not a Duty, but a Right—Including the Right to Abstain

Economist Gary Galles writes at the Independent Institute on voting:

“If you don’t vote, you don’t have a voice in government”: This claim is falsified by the fact that even casting your vote won’t give you an effective voice in government.

“If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain about government”: This argument fails for the same reason. It also ignores the fact that facing what are typically binary choices between candidates, and yes-or-no votes on special-interest initiatives, further degrades your ability to invoke your preferences.

“If you don’t vote, you don’t care about America”: This is similarly unconvincing when your vote doesn’t alter the outcome. Not only has abstaining been common since America’s foundation, but not voting is perhaps the most effective way to protest that “none of the above” represent what you consider acceptable, because voting for “the lesser of two evils” is still voting for an evil.

“It is your duty to vote”: This assertion runs aground because if your vote won’t change the outcome, it cannot be your social duty. Voting is not a duty, but a right—including the right to abstain. Further, most voters are far from informed on most issues, and casting an uninformed vote is more a dereliction of duty than a fulfillment of it.

“You must vote, because the electoral process would collapse if no one voted”: This ignores two facts—that your individual vote won’t matter, and that virtually no one’s individual choice of whether to and/or how to vote alters an appreciable number of others’ voting choices. (Politicians, who won’t be taken seriously if they abstain from voting, are an exception.)

Does the fact that so many “your vote is crucially important” arguments are invalid imply you shouldn’t vote? No. However, those claims cannot justify voting on issues you are uninformed about, since that offers society no benefits. Since your electorally insignificant vote won’t change the outcome, it also means that voting to forcibly transfer others’ wealth to you or your pet causes is ineffective, as well as morally objectionable.

However, if such errors are avoided, voting can provide a means of cheering for those candidates and proposals that advance what James Madison called “the general and permanent good of the whole” without plundering others. So, while logic does not demand that you vote or that you abstain, it does impose limits on what one can justify voting for.

The above should not just apply to America, but elsewhere, including the Philippines

The Silent Revolution: Election Boycotts

In reading Frank Chodorov’s fantastic article, it dawned upon me that I have been an unwitting 6-year practitioner of Mr. Chodorov’s ‘silent revolution’: I haven’t exercised my rights to suffrage in protest to what I perceive as the current farcical ‘social democracy’ which hallmarks the Philippines’ political system.

Here are some rudimentary reasons how and why election boycotts could be utilized as one avenue to institute political change.

These great excerpts from Mr. Chodorov: (all bold highlights mine):

Why should a self-respecting citizen endorse an institution grounded in thievery? For that is what one does when one votes.

In the quiet of his conscience each citizen pledges himself, to himself, not to give moral support to an unmoral institution, and on election day he remains at home.

the fact that every election is a seizure of power. The balloting system has been defined as a battle between opposing forces, each armed with proposals for the public good, for a grant of power to put these proposals into practice. As far as it goes, this definition is correct; but when the successful contestant acquires the grant of power toward what end does he use it — not theoretically but practically? Does he not, with an eye to the next campaign, and with the citizens' money, go in for purchasing support from pressure groups? Whether it is by catering to a monopoly interest whose campaign contribution is necessary to his purpose, or to a privilege-seeking labor group, or to a hungry army of unemployed or of veterans, the over-the-barrel method of seizing and maintaining political power is standard practice

Remember that the proposal to quit voting is basically revolutionary; it amounts to a shifting of power from one group to another, which is the essence of revolution.

All this would change if we quit voting. Such abstinence would be tantamount to this notice to politicians: since we as individuals have decided to look after our affairs, your services are no longer needed. Having assumed social power we must, as individuals, assume social responsibility — provided, of course, the politicians accept their discharge.

Revolutions starts with the individual.

By refusing to exercise our rights to suffrage we should put notice to the everyone, especially to the power hungry politicians, that we expect genuine “change” by fundamentally allowing individuals to assume greater social power and not some pretentious cycles of ‘personality based welfare-free goodies based politics’.

All it takes is to stay home.