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Comment by lokar | Hacker News Reader

Not half the country. Almost half of the people who voted.

IMO if you don't vote, you're tacitly agreeing with whoever gets voted into office.

(Although US voter suppression weakens this argument)

That's reasonable enough, but you have to consider it in the context that we don't vote for president, we vote for state electors to vote for president.

If you live in a 'safe' state, tacitly agreeing with your state's electors doesn't mean tacitly agreeing with the electoral college result.

If you can’t be bothered to make your disapproval seen at least once every 4 years, then I consider it a tacit approval. So that actually makes 2/3 of Americans in support of Trump’s brand of America.

I disagree with your take. You have the right to not vote when you disagree with all parties running.

In fact, from a moral point of view voting for the lesser evil is highly objectionable because you are voting for someone who you do not even support just so that another person you support even less does not get elected.

Its perfectly fine to say, I don't agree with either and I am going to sit this one out otherwise you end up in weird political dynamics that you can see playing out in real time in France for example.

If your political system does not present you with a candidate that aligns with your interests or beliefs, you should vote to change the political system. Not voting is consent to the status quo.

> Not voting is consent to the status quo.

I disagree fundamentally.

Not voting is simply not making a choice. If the choices presented do not align with my preferences then I do not vote. Why would I vote for someone who I don't support? I don't pick the candidates that are offered. Want me to vote? Then get better candidates next time! Until then I will exercise my right to not vote.

Your status quo also assume that either one or both candidates are presenting you with potential change to what has happened in the past whereas most of the time, the choices are simply a continuation of what has been happening aka tinkering on the margins without pissing too many people off.

I think purposely spoiling your ballot is a better signal to the parties that none of them are acceptable. Is that possible in your elections? Around here, a spoiled ballot is scrutinized by the party observers, so your message would definitely be heard.

I'd love to see a ballot with ranked choice voting that includes a none of the above option.

I could technically vote in 3 countries but I vote in none.

My preferred voting system is the ranked choice one in Australia but Australia also has compulsory voting which I disagree with.

I think in a democracy, it is up to the voter to decide if and how much they want to get involved in the democratic process just like a person has the right to join or not a parti, listen or not to a political debate and so on and so forth.

I wish the blank vote was more represented in the democratic process somehow but I don't really have a solution for this problem.

In Australia voting apart from compulsory (with exemptions) as well as anonymous, so the voter is free to mark the paper such that they don't support any of the candidates and suggest what they think is a better candidate. It will be an informal vote, these informal votes are counted and published, but as I've been told, that informal vote count is then split 50-50 between the top two contenders. My locale is in an area with a high informal vote.

Compulsory voting just means that there's no space where some of the population can hop on the high horse of saying the political troubles of the country have nothing to do with them as they didn't vote. I used to work around the loop holes and got out of voting until my early mid 20s when I just didn't give that much of a hoot either way for state or federal politics.

While I tend to agree with you in principle, that not voting is consenting to the status quo, in the US (outside of swing states) voting is almost an act of futility.

For the executive branch, the US president is not elected by direct vote, but instead by the electoral college, as enshrined in the US Constitution Article 2. The average voter has essentially zero voting influence to change the Constitution, and the plurality voting created by the electoral college intrinsically promotes a two party political system, and further political polarization. There is also a chance in some cases of “faithless electors”.

For judicial seats, while some states hold elections for state/county seats, all federal judges are appointed by the executive branch, which is therefore (IMO) essentially held hostage by the pluralist electoral college.

And for the legislative branch, candidate selection is heavily influenced by the primary elections of the two dominant political parties, before even reaching national elections. It’s also heavily influenced by campaign funds and lobbyist interests. While states have the authority to adopt alternative systems, the vast majority still use plurality voting, and the currently entrenched two-party system is incentivized to keep it that way.

So I can understand why some voters see not participating as a valid protest against the status quo, even if I don’t agree with that action.

You have the right to not vote on the moral grounds that you hate every candidate. You also have the right to crap your pants because every toilet is too dirty. By not making a decision, a decision is made for you that's worse than all of the options you could have decided between. You have the right to act in a way that causes the worst outcome to happen and rationalize it somehow as being a good person, when acting differently would have caused a better outcome to happen but you rationalize that causing a better outcome would make you a bad person. Doesn't mean it's a good idea.

It's not even the trolley problem since the same person is tied across both tracks.

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