Skepticism

You Can’t Fix Things by Not Voting

This post contains a video, which you can also view here. To support more videos like this, head to patreon.com/rebecca!

Let me start with a quick primer for those of you joining me for the first time, and for those of you who watch my videos but aren’t the best at, like, media literacy (I know you’re out there, I’ve seen your comments): I am a progressive voter who has been been vocally critical of many of Joe Biden’s conservative policies. I voted against Joe Biden in the “Democratic primary,” I am appalled at the apparent state of his mental health in public appearances including but certainly and unfortunately not limited to his recent debate, and I am deeply concerned about his ability to win the 2024 election.

But this November, I will be voting for Joe Biden, or whatever candidate the Democrats decide to run this November, up to and including a crate of old and rotting apples. Yes, even if they are Red Delicious, which we all agree is the worst apple.

Why? Because Donald Trump represents an existential threat to women, to LGBTQ people, to minorities, to immigrants, to secularism, and to democracy itself. So my choices are to either vote Democrat or not vote at all, and NOT VOTING will NOT WORK to steer this country in a more progressive direction. In fact, it does the exact opposite: if progressives like me decide to sit this one out, we will drive the United States further to the right WHETHER TRUMP WINS OR NOT.

This is my opinion, but it is my opinion based upon history and scientific research.

I’ll start by quoting historian Kevin M. Kruse on his newsletter, because he said it better than I could. Regarding the belief that not voting will force the Democrats to realize they need to move left to secure progressive votes, he writes:

“This belief stems from an apparent misunderstanding of a voter’s role in an election, one that sees a voter like a consumer. Much as consumers can band together to deny their support for a business and thereby persuade the business to change its policies to secure their support, these people believe that voters can band together to deny their support for a political party and thereby persuade the party to change its policies to secure their support.

“But it doesn’t work that way.

“Businesses have a profit motive to chase down every possible customer, because, uh, the more customers they have, the more money they make.

“Politics works on an entirely different set of incentives. A candidate isn’t looking to win over every single possible voter; they just want to edge out their competition for the voters who did show up. The goal of any race*** is to get 50% of the vote, plus one more vote. That’s it.

“So boycotting an election merely shrinks the total pool of voters these politicians are fighting over. Playing hard to get actually makes it easier on the politicians you’re hoping to persuade. It makes it easier because they can all just ignore the voters who are sitting it out and ignore their cause as well, and fight over the ones who remain.

“And after the election, sure, there will be some calls to “expand the base” by reaching out to the boycotters. But those calls will be drowned out by the arguments from veteran campaigners who know all too well that it’s much easier to persuade people who regularly vote to switch to your side than it is to persuade people who might agree with you but never vote to finally get into the game.”

Kruse doesn’t cite any science to back that up, probably because he’s a historian who has simply seen this play out over and over again, as with progressives voting for Ralph Nader in 2000 and sitting out in 2016. In that more recent instance, Dems quite clearly didn’t come back in 2020 with a super progressive candidate or agenda, which is why we now have no abortion rights and an 81-year old conservative Democrat running for reelection.

That said, I CAN offer some scientific evidence that supports this idea. In 2019, political scientists polled more than 7,000 Americans to determine WHY they weren’t voting. By far the most common reason, cited in 40% of cases, was that they were incapable of voting, due to problems like being sick or not having transportation. Only 26% reported that they had voted in the past but were choosing not to vote now because they didn’t like or know enough about either choice.

So while it makes sense to say, “Hey, 55% of eligible voters didn’t show up in 2016, let’s try to get them to come out for our side,” the actual number of people who SAY they COULD be convinced to come to the polls is about a quarter of that. Maybe 14% of eligible voters. And it’s hard to know whether they’re sitting out because the choices aren’t progressive enough, or aren’t Nazi enough, or aren’t “paleoconservative” enough, or what.

That study supports what many others have shown: most people who don’t vote do so because of systemic problems, not because of the idiosyncrasies of each election. That’s why so many studies that look at non-voter habits across many elections find that most non-voters just never vote, regardless of who is running. And that’s why the Democrats focus on the people who are already voting, but not voting for them: i.e., the people voting Republican. And that’s why we had Democrats in Congress try and (luckily) fail to pass an anti-immigration bill opposed by 100 human rights organizations instead of doing literally anything else.

And just to be clear, by describing the “logic” behind these party policy decisions, I am NOT defending them. I very much wish that we would remove all the systemic barriers to voting, by standardizing mail-in ballots, making election day a federal holiday, and giving all felons back their right to vote (except for one, maybe, because it’s very funny if Trump can’t vote for himself). Right now, voters tend to be older, richer, and whiter than nonvoters. These changes would improve the diversity of people voting, and based on demographics and research in the past few decades suggesting nonvoters tend to skew more liberal, this would slightly tilt votes in favor of Democrats regardless of policy.

And again, I very much wish I could vote for a progressive candidate for president this year. I cannot.

But I CAN vote strategically. I understand the desire to wield your vote like a symbol of your deeply-held personal sense of morality. As a resident of a liberal county in California, I was able to do that in the presidential primary earlier this year, and yeah, it felt like a tiny victory to NOT vote for Joe Biden then. But I only did so because Joe Biden was going to be the Democratic candidate regardless. My vote quite literally meant nothing. 
But even here in my “safe” blue county, Biden is NOT a shoe-in for the main gig. I’m going to vote for the Democrat because I know that unlike Trump, I have a chance to bully a Democrat into protecting my rights in the future, instead of simply watching as those rights are obliterated. And I hope you do, too. Check out the transcript, linked below, to find links to learn whether you’re registered to vote, to get registered to vote, and to find your polling place.

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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