Principled nonvoting could send a message

Time was, presidential years featured solemn sermonettes about the citizen’s duty to vote, and the virtue of prodding the apathetic to plod, even if sullenly, to the polls. There has, however, always been a twofold difficulty with such civic piety: Even in normal times — remember those? — there was no such duty. And hectoring the uninterested to express their opinions with ballots must lower the caliber of election results.

This is not a normal time. Granted, scores of millions of Americans normally think their political options should be much better: The memory of man runneth not to a time when voters exclaimed, “What a divine presidential choice we have this year!” Still, 2024 is so abnormal, consider, without necessarily embracing, an argument in defense of principled nonvoting. The argument is: Elections register opinions. Abstaining from voting can express a public-spirited and potentially consequential opinion.

Regarding the supposed duty to vote, the right to ignore politics is an attribute of a good society. As for the supposed duty to become satisfactorily informed:

Polls showed that in 1964, two years after the Cuban missile crisis, only 38% of Americans knew the Soviet Union was not a NATO member. In 2006, only 42% could name the government’s three branches. The average American works harder at being informed when choosing a refrigerator. Many nonvoters’ inertia reflects rational ignorance: The chance of any person’s vote affecting an election result is vanishingly small, so why bother? In most years, the disposition of most states’ electoral votes is not in doubt, so why bother?

Still, voting gives the emotional satisfaction of participation in a national moment of shared responsibility and common purpose. This is one reason to regret the transformation of Election Day into Election Month. This year, some might consider forgoing the satisfaction of voting to send the parties a message.

Competing but complacent manufacturers of a particular product — think automobiles; think the late 1950s to the mid1960s — sometimes ignore consumer preferences. Remember the mercifully short life (19571959) of the Ford Motor Co.’s Edsel? This clunky chromeladen, more-of-the-same sedan arrived just as something radically different — the Volkswagen Beetle — began to find customers.

Many millions of voters so intensely dislike one or the other of the two major candidates, fury will propel them to the polls. But suppose bipartisan disappointment propelled millions to boycott the election? Imagine a dramatic upsurge in nonvoting that was explainable as a principled protest.

This could not be measured in exit polls but talented psephologists should be able to find a way to measure the size of a cohort that abstained because of thoughtful disgust.

In 1948, the first presidential election after World War II and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four elections, with the Cold War beginning, turnout might have soared. Actually, at 52.2% of eligible voters, it was the second-lowest of the past 80 years. Much the highest turnout since World War II was 66.6% in 2020, the highest since 1904. It was 6.5 points above 2016, a result of pro- and anti-Donald Trump passions. High turnout is a more reliable indicator of national dyspepsia than of civic health.

It might be a constructive signal to both parties if, for the first time in a century, more than half the electorate would not vote. Voters’ eloquent abstention would say they will return to the political marketplace when offered something better than a choice between two Edsels.