Not Voting is a Vote

You have to vote.

Just vote.

It's your duty to vote.

It's my duty to not vote. There I said it. I should be clear, I'm not talking about not voting at all, I'm talking about not voting for anyone I expect to see on the presidential ballot. I have some senatorial candidates and all that I will be voting for, but as of right now I refuse to vote for anyone on the ballot.

I'm not voting Hillary or Trump. No way. Lewis Black was not lying when he said we have a party of no ideas and a party of bad ideas. I've read plenty of blogs and news editorials on why I should vote for one of these two and most of them boil down to "you gotta vote for Hillary because if Trump wins we will become a fascist state" or "Anybody but Hillary."  If the best argument for your candidate is s/he is not the other candidate your candidate is unworthy of my vote. That tactic has failed. So interestingly has the "this candidate is not as bad as they've been painted" tactic because even they have done little to show me anything particularly likeable in their candidate. My analysis, comments, and reasons for refusing to vote for either were so negative, I had to delete them before publishing this post because I did not feel I could post them without violating the Commandment to not bear false witness against my neighbor, since it would be hardly interpreting their actions in the best possible light and in case I was inaccurate at all, I felt it would be wrong to state them. But when you literally have to invoke the "if you can't say nothing nice" clause it's a problem.

I was seriously considering Johnson for a while. I may be extremely pro-life and not happy with his pro-choice status, but I get the Libertarian philosophy behind it, and there are at least other areas I would like to see that philosophy at work. The thing that did me in for Johnson was not his brain fart when it came to naming world leaders but his fiscal plan of budget and tax reform. I am on board with making it law that the budget must be balanced. That makes sense. I am not on board with out and out 40+% spending cuts. That's unrealistic, and the poorest, oldest, and weakest among our nation would likely suffer. I know we need to increase spending in things like senior care and education, not decrease it. I think that can be done while being more fiscally responsible as a nation, I don't think it can be done with the kind of cuts he's proposing. And I looked very briefly at Jill Stein's platform, but it didn't take me long to consider it unrealistic and fiscally irresponsible and it more than any political pitch I have ever heard or read looked like a thousand empty promises hoping you will buy one of them. Of the options out there Johnson is in my view the best. But he has not won my vote.


And of course I've heard all the "3rd party vote is a wasted vote" or "you're taking votes away from Trump/Hillary who needs those votes to beat Hillary/Trump." That is a failed tactic too. For one,  giving increased place to a third party impacts its place in future holdings and is fundamental towards the march of breaking down our two-party system that has handcuffed our government and turned checks and balances from a checking of each branch of the government to a means of battling the opposing political party. And I am sick of it. It is still tempting to vote third party for that fact, and if the outcome changes who wins the election, then maybe the two parties will learn to put out a candidate who people aren't going out of their way to not vote for. Additionally, voting for anyone you believe in is not a wasted vote. That is the purpose of voting: getting to cast your voice.

This brings me to my case for not voting for any of them. In short, contrary to everything you have been taught, not voting is a vote. It's the one thing that people have missed for years, but this current election - especially the campaigns of Trump and Sanders - illustrated: many people who don't vote will if they find a candidate that resonates with them. Simply put, the parties and political climate they created have alienated a large portion of the population. It was outside the box candidates that posed a real threat to the existing party's current state that brought new voters out in droves. A non-vote is a way of saying to the parties "Do better next time", it is the means by which people say "I refuse to be complicit in either of these people's election". As one who sits on all sorts of boards that vote for various things, when someone abstains from a vote (especially when multiple people do), there usually is a reason. The best thing we can do is show up to vote, and when it comes to the part of president leave it blank. I refuse to settle for the choices left me. And frankly, if a large number of the population intentionally left that blank, you know in the next election the number one question out there will be "how do we get those people's votes?"

Before you say that simply makes me complicit in the election of so-and-so because I won't vote for your person, consider this: if I voted I would not vote for your person either way. So no, my vote by non-vote is not helping Trump or Hillary win, it is the opposite: it is refusing to help either of them win. Because at the end of the day, I have to live with who I voted for. It has brought me to one of three choices: a third party vote in hopes it boosts the party's presence in future elections, a vote for a candidate I hoped would've won the primaries in hopes it spurns that person onward to run in the future, or to leave the president section intentionally blank so that when the numbers are crunched they see the amount of ballots cast and times voted don't match. I have been wavering between the options and am currently leaning towards the third. This is my explanation. Not that it is needed, because in the end it is none of your business who I vote for, but because I think someone needs to express why there are people like myself considering action by inaction. And how your arguments to have me choose the lesser of two evils is not working and I would appreciate if you stop them.

I should also state something else. In the end, I will pray for whoever wins. I will pray for him/her, offer support, and even thank God for him/her. Because that is a job I don't want and am ill qualified for. And because we do need our government, and while I have beliefs on how the government should be run, even ones run by people I didn't vote for has yet to cause doomsday. I expect the same here. I do not believe Hillary or Trump will utterly ruin the country or start a fascist state. Along with not being enthralled in our two-party system or buying into the "you have to vote for our candidate" argument because the other candidate is literally the devil, I don't buy into the apocalyptic rhetoric both sides continually espouse. This isn't a belief that I would be complicit in destroying America if I vote for one of them, it's simply the belief that even if it isn't the end of the world we can do better.