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Comment by kiitos | Hacker News Reader

Voting is absolutely an obligation for any democratic society. Abstaining provides no kind of signal or message to the body politic.

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Abstaining can show the lack of faith in the limited options given. If a meaningful number of voters stay home it can signal that (a) there are voters to be won if the existing parties change and (b) voters are fed up with the status quo and may be open to a third party option.

Abstaining does not demonstrate what you think it does in the electoral system we have in place in the US.

And yet it's exactly this fear of voters abstaining which just ousted Biden as nominee.

I have no idea how you came to this conclusion. It's incoherent.

Read some other comments in this large thread, maybe it will click for you.

Elections occurring and people voting in them is necessary for the continuance of a democratic society. The actions of individuals who are qualified to vote within said democratic society choosing not to vote does not nullify this.

> Abstaining provides no kind of signal or message to the body politic.

This is true and irrelevant. Not wanting to spend the (rounding up) 10 seconds to glance at and fill out the Presidential portion of a ballot nor waste the ink from your pen to do so before dropping it in the post simply because you do not like any of the viable candidates enough to do so (or for any other reason) is a personal affair.

> Not wanting to spend the (rounding up) 10 seconds to glance at and fill out the Presidential portion of a ballot nor waste the ink from your pen to do so before dropping it in the post simply because you do not like any of the viable candidates enough to do so (or for any other reason) is a personal affair.

In the same way that not helping at the scene of an automobile accident is a personal affair, I suppose, yes.

I mean if you fail a logic check and treat equally an automobile accident with a cavalcade of knuckleheads running to acquire power, you are absolutely correct.

Just not in this reality.

This is an infantile perspective on society and government. Be better.

You have yet to make an actual argument, only gesticulate in the general direction that you think it is problematic for people to choose not to vote in every election on every ticket. This is not a well developed position, only one that is reinforced by bad rhetoric and dogma.

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