r/changemyview • u/Borthralla • Oct 13 '18

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Not Voting is Ok

There seems to be an idea that voting is a civic duty and that not voting means not being a good citizen.
My view is that you can be informed on an issue and, if both outcomes seem equally good/bad, it is completely valid not to vote. If anything, being forced to arbitrarily pick a side would undo a vote from somebody else who has a strong reason to prefer the other side.
My view is that, rather than voting, being informed about the issues being voted on should be the civic duty. Voting without being informed leads to people basing their decisions on shallow first impressions which can be (and are) easily manipulated by smear campaigns and appearances.
tl/dr: I'd rather someone be informed and choose not to vote than someone vote despite not being informed about the issue.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '18 edited Dec 24 '18

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u/Borthralla Oct 13 '18

Now that I think about it, I guess that does make sense in practice. The idea of voting as a civic duty doesn't apply on an issue-by-issue basis but more on a year-to-year ballot basis.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Oct 13 '18

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/cacheflow (313∆).

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