Thursday, January 26, 2017

The Right to Not Vote

Perhaps if it had occurred to the Founding Fathers that their experiment in Democracy would be disrupted by a widespread neglect of the opportunity to vote, they might have added a Bill of Responsibilities to the Constitution that includes mandatory voting.  An alleged 'right' to not vote could not, therefore, be a Constitutionally guaranteed Right.  Furthemore, if there is such a thing as a 'natural' Right to not exercise a Right to vote, it is unclear what its ground might be, especially insofar as it seems to lack any corresponding Responsibility.  Now, a refusal to vote, on the ground that the available options are products of an un-Democratic process, e. g. one conditioned by Plutocratic principles, seems substantive. But, that corruption could be rectified by 'none of the above' being offered as an alternative.  Regardless, between the continued difficulties in protecting the universal Right to vote, and the popular assumption that there is a 'right' to not vote, it seems unlikely that this dimension of the deficiency in universal suffrage will be addressed any time soon.

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