# Is it wrong for me not to vote, like my father? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 30, 2016, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303 "2016-09-30T19:53:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ultimate11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/49beb7/32.png) [@ultimate11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultimate11)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/1 "2016-09-30T19:53:54Z")
As the title says, my father isn’t registered to vote because he doesn’t want to (he’s eligible but he chooses to stay away from voting, pick a side, etc.) Normally I vote because it’s a free right and it enhances my American morals that way, but with the way this election is, I feel like this election is the year I’ll avoid voting. It’s not like the vote matters anyway, unlike voting for a governor or senator/representative, it’s not a direct vote. Or maybe I just don’t want to care no more. What’s the point if all I get is pain? I’d rather worry more about making money than worrying about who’s running and who’s living on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Is it a wrong notion to think this way? Avoid politics because there’s nothing I could do? ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/2 "2016-09-30T19:57:03Z")
Yes. Put on a helmet and get out there and do your duty! ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/3 "2016-09-30T19:58:19Z")
You are perfectly free not to vote, whatever your reasons may be. This is America and you have that choice. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/4 "2016-09-30T20:03:09Z")
Are there any local issues on your ballot this year? The smaller the voting base per issue/candidate, the more your vote counts. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/5 "2016-09-30T20:04:47Z")
> [@ultimate11](#): > > I’d rather worry more about making money than worrying about who’s running and who’s living on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. > > Is it a wrong notion to think this way? Avoid politics because there’s nothing I could do? Well, define “Wrong.” FACTUALLY, you are logically inconsistent. The resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue affects your ability to make money. So in fact you’re worried about making money, the result of the election should be of interest to you. Morally, the answer is subjective. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/6 "2016-09-30T20:28:43Z")
Entering the poll and submitting a blank ballot is a vote, and seems to reflect your opinion of the choices quite well. Maybe put a little more effort than normal into deciding on the down-ballot choices - I know I never do a great job of looking up the school board stuff, and things like that. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/7 "2016-09-30T20:31:27Z")
There may not be a best choice in the election, but there is clearly a worst one. There are several ways of enabling that worst choice, and only one way to try to prevent it. Your suggested way is in the former category. I won’t even expound on my total lack of respect for abdicating one’s civic duty. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/8 "2016-09-30T20:52:40Z")
My father-in-law is doing this. I have told him that I will hold him personally responsible if we get a result that we can’t live with. I’m not really kidding. Here’s how I run these things down: People have died, in our country, and across the world, for the right to vote. It is a fundamental core of our government. If our government, over time, starts working less effectively, it’s because people stop exercising their fundamental rights. Exercise your right to vote. Yes, one vote is a drop in the ocean at the national level, but the drops add up and they matter. You can’t control anyone else’s actions but your own. Exercise your right to vote. Your vote for Senator and Congressional Representative is important. (Is Federal taxation important to you? Guess where that is decided.) Keep going. Your vote starts to matter more as you get down to the state and local level. Are there state senate/representative races? Guess where your state taxes decided? What about city and local races? What about police and schools? What about roads? What about gun laws? What about hunting? What about building restrictions? What about sales taxes? What about property taxes? What about mininum wages? Are any of those issues important to you? Even if they are not on the ballot specifically, the people that are elected this time may decide them in the future. Exercise your right to vote. I understand that the presidential candidates may not, in and of themselves, be interesting to you. If you cannot bring yourself to vote for either one, then do not. Please do go out and vote for all of the other people and ballot measures that will impact your life over the coming years. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/9 "2016-09-30T20:57:28Z")
Hm… New Internet app: “Pair-a-Non-Vote.” You register how you would like to vote, and it matches you up with someone who holds the opposite views. You and he both pledge not to vote, knowing you’d just cancel each other out. Everybody’s happy. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/10 "2016-09-30T21:22:13Z")
That rumbling noise I’m hearing is my grandmother turning over in her grave. She first voted in a Presidential election in 1928, when she was not quite twenty four years old. She was born in December of 1904, so that was the first election after her twenty first birthday. She continued voting until 2012, and she died less than a month after she cast her vote. That’s twenty two straight elections people. Even now it’s a record that would be hard to beat. Say you voted on your eighteenth birthday, you’d still have to live to 102 to tie my grandma, and 106 to beat her. Damn it, get out there and vote! There may not be a candidate you are voting FOR, but surely there is somebody to vote AGAINST. If you don’t vote and take sides, however shaky, you will always be in the wrong. Besides, people who don’t vote have absolutely no right to bitch about how things are being run, **VOTE!** ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/11 "2016-09-30T21:48:11Z")
Ridiculous. Here’s how much my vote counts. I’m a liberal and I live in Texas. If a liberal candidate ever got close enough to winning the Texas electors that my vote could make a difference, every other state would have already been won in a liberal landslide before Texas even started counting votes. So how could my vote possibly have any effect on the outcome? Do you know that in most elections, about 15% of all congressional seats have a single unopposed candidate, so one out of seven of you won’t even have a choice for congressman when you look at your ballot. In about 6 elections in a row, I discovered that for congress, I had the same number of names on the ballot as Iraqis had when they voted for Saddam Hussein. ---
**Author:** ![ultimate11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/49beb7/32.png) [@ultimate11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultimate11)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/12 "2016-09-30T22:38:20Z")
Ah fuck it. I had something of an notion during the 2015 Illinois election, so I will vote. I may end up pissing off one side, face death threats, have one of family members throw me under the grave and leave me worse off (or not- my momma loves me too much), but I’m American! Why not? Best of luck to me. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/13 "2016-09-30T22:52:43Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > …Besides, people who don’t vote have absolutely no right to bitch about how things are being run I disagree 100%. So did George Carlin, who said something like, “I don’t vote so I can complain - I say, hey, don’t look at me, I didn’t elect those assholes!” mmm ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/14 "2016-09-30T23:07:11Z")
Yes, vote. When I vote I don’t care who is ahead in any poll by any amount. I vote on the issues and platform of my candidate or party. It’s not just my right to vote, It’s my obligation as a tax-paying member of society. Sent from my adequate mobile device. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/15 "2016-09-30T23:28:30Z")
It is not “wrong.” As with any choice you make, and any action you take, there will be consequences. In the case of not voting, several things result. - since this country does NOT require an actual majority of potential voters to elect someone, only a simple majority of the people who voted, by NOT voting, you have given additional control of the country to the other people who do vote. - since you didn’t vote, when things happen later, you will know that you did nothing to make them happen as they did, or to prevent them, as the case may be. This will affect your self perception, and you wont be able to do anything about it after the fact. If you did vote, you would be able either to feel pleased, or feel relieved or even decide to vote the other way next time. But regardless, you will feel empowered. - Not voting as a protest, it is unfocused and unidentifiable, and therefore useless. The fact that you don’t vote can be noticed, but no one will know why you didn’t vote. Therefore anyone can claim to represent you later. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/16 "2016-09-30T23:39:38Z")
Not voting in the general POTUS election if you have the ability to vote and the common sense to make a decision about who is relatively better or worse to be POTUS is (IMO) a personal ethical failure and abrogation of your civic duty. You can make all the excuses in the world but in the end it’s just shirking. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/17 "2016-10-01T00:11:16Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > There may not be a best choice in the election, but there is clearly a worst one. > > There are several ways of enabling that worst choice, and only one way to try to prevent it. Your suggested way is in the former category. > > I won’t even expound on my total lack of respect for abdicating one’s civic duty. it’s not my “civic duty” to be forced into a “Sophie’s Choice” between a kick in the balls and a punch in the face. I’m tired of every election being a situation where I have to choose the lesser of two evils, and I’m _really_ tired of people who seem fine with such a system. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/18 "2016-10-01T00:36:05Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > it’s not my “civic duty” to be forced into a “Sophie’s Choice” between a kick in the balls and a punch in the face. I’m tired of every election being a situation where I have to choose the lesser of two evils, and I’m _really_ tired of people who seem fine with such a system. Welcome to the real world. Now grow a pair and make your voice heard. If you think Trump isn’t the worst thing that could happen to the US in the last century, you’re sadly deluded, and you are accountable if he gets elected and you did nothing to prevent it. ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/19 "2016-10-01T00:53:06Z")
> [@ultimate11](#): > > Is it a wrong notion to think this way? Avoid politics because there’s nothing I could do? I’m with you. I’ll be sitting out this election, too. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303/20 "2016-10-01T00:55:43Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Welcome to the real world. Now grow a pair nice. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-wrong-for-me-not-to-vote-like-my-father/767303.md?page=2)