I’ve recently become disillusioned with political action in general, voting in particular. The state has become so sour to my tastes that I feel I must do what I can to refuse participating in its aggrandizement, and refusing to vote seems a viable position in this regard. But there is little philosophy on the subject and very little writing I can find comfort in. So I seek help from the forum in formulating any arguments for refusing to vote. Any challenges, refinements, and of course mockery is appreciated.

To explain, my disillusion began when a friend of mine from Australia boasted to me that she was quite proud of the compulsory voting in her country. I had to scoff because living in a state where performing compulsory political rituals is not much to be proud of, or at least it ought not to be. The right to vote is not much of a right if the right not to vote doesn’t come with it; if you’ve traded your right to vote for a duty to vote, suffrage for state servitude, it might be proper to show some humility.

One can understand why a state might make voting compulsory, though. Without the vote, and thus without the necessary concessions of power from the people to the state, state power would appear less legitimate. After all, despite what indoctrination teaches us, a concession of power is all a vote amounts to. This becomes clear whenever we use our votes in its most obsequious function: in order to elect which mammal should be given power over the rest. So it could be said that refusing to vote is tantamount to refusing to sign over our lives to other men.

Though it’s true that a right to vote should be universal, and lords and landowners ought not to be the only ones able to elect who has the power and who makes the rules, the representative system, the relationship between a representative and his constituents, differs only in degree to the lords and land owners representing the landless tenantry in the decision making processes. That we get to vote for who should rule us seems more a consolation prize than any tangible enfranchisement.

In effect, though, refusing to vote as a matter of conscience is no different than refusing to vote because I have better shit to do. Others would vote; people would be afforded power; very little would change. Not until no one voted could anything revolutionary occur, and any political movement in this direction appears outlandish, even if not impossible.

So the question remains, is refusing to vote a viable political position?