Is there an option to ‘spoil’ your ballot paper in a US election like there is in a British one? The trouble with not voting is that the pollies assume it is because you were too lazy. At least if you turn up and write ‘fu’ or ‘none of the above’ you are conveying a clear message that you don’t believe that any of the candidates deserved your vote.
If you don’t vote, you ARE lazy — but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Edison once commented that laziness was a major motive for invention. Edison was himself a hard worker; but the point is, you don’t want to waste your time.
Actually, voting almost never makes sense. Whether you supported the winner or the loser, the margin almost always is more than your one vote. Your effort in getting to the poles was wasted. This is simple cost-benefit analysis.
The trouble is, if you are a logical person and follow this analysis, all the elections will be totally controlled by illogical people who cannot understand anything, and most of them will be looking for handouts, or else will be socialists wanting to control things by giving out stuff. And where will they get this stuff to give away? Well, probably from you and people like you.
The answer is that you should vote in any case, if only for the psychological kick it gives you to stick it to the dummies. If you don’t get a bit of evil fun from annoying socialists, get some therapy, and start enjoying life.
In the US, we can vote and choose not to vote for someone in any given race. If I do that, I prefer to choose to write in a candidate, even though I know the write in won’t be read. It’s better than a blank ballot which people might get pro-active with.
Although elections are serious things, I think a certain cynicism about the whole business is not too amiss. :)