When Not Voting Is Difficult

Posted October 8, 2020

I don't vote as matter of principle. Although this is not the place for a long disquisition on why, in simple terms, it is because I do not believe that having more people on one's side gives one the right to tell others what to do. Basically, I do not believe that democracy is a morally justified form of government. I do not vote because I do not support giving any human being the power over others that our current crop of politicians possess, and a vote for any one of them would falsely indicate that I do.

Perhaps I could be persuaded to vote in a political system in which government power was effectively limited to preserving freedom and the voters elected officials to perform the administrative functions necessary to realize this end. But in the current environment of virtually unlimited government power, that is idle speculation. As a nation, we are currently drowning in a sea of democracy. I will not support the rising tide by voting.

Each election cycle, I face the same criticism for taking this position. In our two party system, one of the two major party candidates will receive the most votes and be endowed with government power. My interlocutor points out that by not voting, I make it more likely that whichever candidate I believe to be more misguided or more dangerous will be elected. Even if I don't like either candidate, I should vote for the lesser evil in order to avoid an even worse result.

My position and the response it usually engenders presents a fairly classic conflict between a deontological and a utilitarian perspective. A deonotological perspective holds that there are some things that are wrong (or right) regardless of the consequences they produce. A utilitarian perspective holds that the right action is the one produces the best consequences.

The utilitarian appeal is usually easy for me to resist. In the first place, my vote has a vanishingly small effect on the outcome and so has essentially no effect on the consequences. More importantly, the choice between the candidates usually makes little difference. All major party candidates want to increase government power regardless of party. The choice is usually between whether you want to lose your economic freedom more rapidly than your civil liberties or vice versa. (Even the administration of Ronald Reagan, the most eloquent political advocate of individual liberty in my lifetime, increased federal taxation, federal spending, and the federal deficit.)

But this year the pressure on me to vote in the presidential election is considerably greater. In the first place, this time the difference between the candidates is not a policy difference. Former Vice-President Biden supports policies that I believe to be illiberal and economically damaging. President Trump has no policies. He also has no principles and no respect for the rights of others. Furthermore, former Vice President Biden has at least heard of the Constitution's restrictions on executive power. President Trump believes Article II of the Constitution give him "the right to do whatever I want as president." Given his administration's treatment of immigrants, his rejection of all oversight of his actions, his vindictive actions against all who oppose him, his attacks on the media, his willingness to use power to serve his own ends (e.g., clearing Lafayette Park of peaceful protesters to take a picture of himself holding up a bible), and his apparent belief that whatever he does is right and everyone else is wrong, President Trump represents a true evil–one that is an order of magnitude greater than that posed by any other presidential candidate during my lifetime.

Secondly, I am under more pressure at home. My wife and daughters, who are usually apolitical, no longer are. They are aware of my view of President Trump and cannot understand why I refuse to vote against him. My response that our political system does not permit one to vote against a candidate, but requires you to vote for one is unavailing. When my annoying brilliant older daughter challenges me with the hypothetical in which I am the deciding vote in a contest between Hitler and Gandhi, I admit that in such a case, I would vote. My explanation that few of us are pure deonotologists--few of us subscribe to the injunction to act rightly though the heavens fall--earns me the look of derision that teenagers reserve for their obviously out of touch aging parents.

Finally, I myself feel the allure of expressive voting. There is little I can do personally to prevent Trump from continuing his dehumanization of immigrants, his destruction of international trade, and his polarization of the country with crackpot conspiracy theories. Casting a vote for someone other than Trump would at least allow me to feel good about myself for registering my opposition to him.

Nevertheless, I intend to adhere to my principle of not voting. The current situation is not the type of highly exceptional case posed by my daughter's hypothetical. And as we teach our students, principles are taken seriously only if one adheres to them when doing so carries some cost. A principle not to support a power structure in which the bigger gang rules would not be very meaningful if I abandoned it merely to indulge my desire to engage in expressive voting or for greater familial harmony.

In addition, a commitment to the principle has a valuable prophylactic effect. It is the nature of politics to focus attention on the immediate at the expense of the long term. Every Presidential election in my adult memory has been characterized as the most important election of our lifetimes. Every four years, we are told that this election is so important that it requires us to hold our nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. But if you indulge this belief and perennially vote for the lesser of two evils, you spend your life voting for evil.

As I have written elsewhere, we are all entitled to decide whether to participate in a collective decision-making process or not. But once we voluntarily decide to participate, we have implicitly committed ourselves to accepting the outcome of the process and living with the results. And this is something I am not willing to do.

I do not support a political system that invests some people with the level of unrestrained power over the lives of others that our present system does, and I intend to oppose it and denounce the depredations of whoever wields that power after the election. It would be difficult to do this with a clear conscience if I had voluntarily voted to give that person the power on November 3.