Dissenting Electorate:

Those Who Refuse to Vote and the Legitimacy of their Opposition

edited by Carl Watner with Wendy McElroy

It's the same message every election year: "Get out and vote—It's your civic duty." Those who audit the sound bites of the candidates, read headlines about the debates and finally pull the lever at their local precinct are touted as moral, upstanding citizens; those who find among the candidates no agreeable representative, no platform worthy of espousal, and who then refuse to turn out on election day, on the other hand, are labeled apathetic and the legitimacy of their opposition is denied.

This book is an anthology of articles and excerpts from a variety of sources that deal with the topic of nonvoting. In presenting the minority view that important moral and political reasons abound for not voting, the book unfolds three general arguments: voting is implicitly a coercive act because it lends support to a compulsory state; voting reinforces the legitimacy of the state; and existing nonpolitical, voluntarist alternatives better serve society. Many people do not agree with the concept of nonvoting—but the serious and well thought through underpinnings of such a belief are of crucial importance to an understanding of modern American politics.

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Why I Would Not Vote Against Hitler, by Wendy McElroy

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Prologue: Don't vote: 20 Practical Reasons by John and Ned Roscoe
Introduction by Carl Watner
Data: Non-Voting Americans
1. The Superiority of Moral Power Over Political Power by Adin Ballou
2. The Non-Voter's Right to Ignore the State by Herbert Spencer
3. Of Voting by Lysander Spooner
4. Against Women Suffrage by Lysander Spooner
5. Political Methods vs. Nonviolent Resistance by Francis Tandy
6. On Underwriting an Evil by Frank Chodorov
7. Abstain from Beans by Robert LeFevre
8. The Illegality, Immorality and Violence of All Political Action by Robert LeFevre
9 Where the Individual Vote Really Counts by Sy Leon
10. Is Voting a Moral Act? by Robert Ringer
11. Should Libertarians Vote or Hold Political Office? by George Smith
12. Election Enhance Government Power and Authority by Benjamin Ginsberg
13. Voting and the Slavery Analogy by Alan Koontz
14. Elections: An Alternative to Political Disorder by Benjamin Ginsberg
15. The Meaning of Elections by Benjamin Ginsberg
16. The Case Against Democracy by Carl Watner
17. Do Voting and Residence Imply Consent? by A. John Simmons
18. An Argument in Defense of the Invisible Hand by John Pugsley
19. Election Day: A Means of State Control by Robert Weissberg
20. Why I Would Not Vote Against Hitler by Wendy McElroy
21. End of the Mandate by Gregory Bresiger
22. The Limits of Political Action by Richard Grant
23. Why I Refuse to Register (to Vote of Pay Taxes) by Anonymous
24. Non-Voting as an Act of Secession by Hans Sherrer
25. Laconics: Short Takes on Non-Voting
Epilogue: Reasons to Vote
Index

Contact the co-editor | Wendy McElroy's Home Page

Page updated 4 March 2001

Dissenting Electorate:

Those Who Refuse to Vote and the Legitimacy of their Opposition

Table of Contents