I take a diametrically opposed viewpoint to this. Everyone should be <i>required</i> to vote. In Australia, among other nations, if you don't vote you pay a fine. Voting in the U.S. should be as mandatory as jury duty, if not more so.<p>When you are <i>required</i> to do something, and when all of your peers, family, and friends are required to do the same thing, it generates a much greater discussion around it.<p>There's this view in the US that voting is a right, not a privilege. When you treat something as non-valuable, then its much easier to take that thing away. Thinking of something as a privilege like borrowing your parents' car when you're young or having the freedom to worship your religion of choice or not makes it much more valuable to you. (Yes, I know that freedom of religion is a right. Don't be pedantic and quibble. People treat the issue like a privilege, whether its a Constitutional right or not.)<p>In the US, the right to bear arms is considered sacred by many. While its referred to as a 'right', millions of Americans treat it like a privilege. When someone threatens to take that away, people are rather vocal about protecting it.<p>So you're right, I won't tell you to vote. But I will do everything in my power to <i>force</i> you to vote, and to care about what you're being required to do. This is one time that telling people to have and care about an opinion is better for everyone.
"<i>Corrolary: You should vote "NO" on every Proposition unless you actually know what the fuck you're talking about. The California Proposition system is asinine, and the way to do least harm is to reject by default.</i>"<p>This is half correct, and that half is very much my policy. If the proposition is for something the legislature can and should be doing, I vote no; we are paying people to give these issues more time and attention than I can afford to.<p>There are three places this differs from the above, though.<p>1) If the proposition deals with something that hugely favors incumbents to the point that the legislatures won't touch it for fear of job security.<p>2) If the proposition is for something the legislature can't do (Constitutional amendment that really needs to be a Constitutional amendment).<p>3) Most significantly, there are places (raising taxes, mostly) where we have tied the hands of our legislature with previous propositions, and require a proposition.<p>For 3), my default position is yes; vote for decent legislators and let them do their jobs.<p>For the first two, I try to make a point of learning enough about propositions of that nature that I can make an intelligent decision. If I can't, however, my default is to not vote on those measures.<p>On propositions for things that the legislature can and should do, I agree whole-heartedly - vote no.
jwz's thesis, that uninformed people shouldn't vote, is overwhelmingly correct. I consider myself to be well-informed, politically speaking. Yet I voted in only 7 of 17 races on my ballot. I am not, for example, equipped to make informed choices for my jurisdiction's school board.<p>All ballots should come with a "No vote" option. What would the difference be from just leaving it blank? Nothing, except that it would give uninformed people a box to tick so that they don't have to stray towards the more important ones.<p>With that said, his stated corollary (to vote against propositions by default) is unhelpful and perhaps harmful. Many ballot proposals are stupid. Some aren't. As a voter, if you don't have an informed opinion, the right move is to leave it blank. Don't vote. Leave the job to those who have done their homework.
It's amusing that jwz brings up the California Proposition system and says that you should vote no on everything when that <i>itself</i> is an uninformed statement to make. Even if you want to keep the status quo, simply voting no on every is not necessarily the correct decision.<p>In California all referendums (still named propositions on the ballot) are flipped. That is, voting YES means that you want to keep the status quo and voting NO means you want to change it.<p>I think uninformed people voting no across the board is what caused Proposition 40, a referendum dropped by those who originally proposed it, to get 27% voting no, despite absolutely no one being on the no side.
The implied supremacy and paternalism in the post is pretty problematic.<p>What is your threshold for informed?<p>Should we have tests at the polls to make sure people have researched before they vote?<p>Do you really want to make a case for an "informed" electorate instead of a more representative one?<p>I know this post isn't saying to deny the vote to the "uninformed", just not to encourage them, but that sentiment implies a) that those people and their opinions are less valuable and b) that the atmosphere of excitement around civic duty which accompanies those posts is itself a problem. I would reject both of those premises.
Ok, so please define "informed".<p>Political opinion seems to suffer from an especially savage form of Dunning–Kruger. Often are the most steadfast and vocal in their opinions and the least objective.<p>Let's say for example, the economy. Maybe one party suggests lowering taxes on the "middle class" to stimulate spending and the other guy wants to make sure we don't tax the "job creators" so that they don't move overseas.<p>How am I supposed to know which is best? Do I need a degree in Keynesian economics or can I just listen to a few talking heads on the local news?
There are more sophisticated arguments than this one for not voting. Among them, even if you believe in a particular cause, you can probably accomplish more for that cause in the hours it takes to vote by doing something other than voting: <a href="http://www.artoftheory.com/the-ethics-of-voting/" rel="nofollow">http://www.artoftheory.com/the-ethics-of-voting/</a><p>Another reason: Those who are not merely voting among party lines are childish, superficial, and even reptilian, when it comes to picking candidates: <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S19/28/30C37/" rel="nofollow">http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S19/28/30C37/</a>
This is a non-issue, because they're clearly not listening (at least in the US).<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#International_differences" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#International_dif...</a>
I'm happy to see someone take a stand against rampant, patronizing Non-Voter Intimidation.<p>Non-voting can be a sign of a healthy system: "Everything's working pretty good; I'm OK with either choice, or whatever my fellow citizens select."