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HexCat wrote (edited )

Short answer: I wouldn't say non-voters are "accountable", but it’s a bad strategy in competitive races because someone is almost certainly going to take over those offices anyways.

Long answer: Maintaining that voters are responsible for anything other than deciding which of usually two people get into office (and that's only if there is even a competitive race) is intellectually bankrupt and just serves to push the most vulnerable of us under the bus. Voting isn't some sacred ritual that means you are endorsing whoever you vote for; it's something you can do within a shitty system to hopefully get the lesser of evils in an office that is going to be occupied anyways. I live in Ohio where we're about to become the most restrictive state when it comes to abortion access, and that is something that simply wouldn't happen if we had a Democrat-controlled legislative or executive branch. I see no merit in actively dissuading people against voting, especially when we have a first-past-the-post, single-winner district, gerrymandered-to-hell system that has nothing to do with accurate representation whatsoever. There is nothing contradictory about making small tactical decisions within an oppressive system while working to destroy it from the outside -- that's literally just using all strategies available, and we do worse every fucking day just to not starve to death under capitalism.

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[deleted] wrote

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this_one wrote

Natives get all the shit regardless on who is in power

Exactly. So there's no point not voting.

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[deleted] wrote

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this_one wrote

Do you mean 'accountable for maintaining' or 'obliged to maintain'?

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[deleted] wrote

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this_one wrote

I do, but personally, I'd feel equally accountable if I didn't vote.

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[deleted] wrote

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this_one wrote

Pretty much, yeah. I think of voting as a (very) small action to make the world slightly less shitty. The only reason I would ever not vote is if there was a better action I could be taking to make the world less shitty, but I seem to have more than enough time to do those things and vote.

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Majrelende wrote (edited )

By not voting, what someone is doing is giving the decision to the dwindling amount of people who do vote, and therefore, voters are not actually responsible for a ruler being elected; it is almost certain that someone will be elected, whether they will trample the oppressed very much or just less than usual.

I know voting is completely ineffective, but at least it is also completely ineffective in actually doing harm unless no one votes— an almost unimaginable situation.

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[deleted] wrote

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HexCat wrote (edited )

"If the party you voted for get in power, you are responsible to have put them there."

That position is no more reasonable than saying one is responsible for perpetuating capitalism for buying groceries. Someone is going to take the office no matter what and it makes no sense to throw away an opportunity to try to get a less evil person. You're taking a ridiculously unfair, unrepresentative, and undemocratic system that rewards strategic voting over going with one's true preferences, and acting like filling in a bubble to nudge towards a less shitty outcome for a lot of people amounts to an endorsement of anything and everything the candidate does. While working to dismantle oppressive systems it doesn't hurt to also take advantage of loopholes within them to make life a little less crappy in the meantime.

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rot wrote

voting in general is bullshit. I still maintain that local elections can be impacted however and its not a total waste to vote in them. National wide elections are bullshit.

As for voting as a means of decision making I'm not a fan of non-consensus reaching votes.

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conseil wrote

I tend to just vote for the most socialist person I can to help them get a better platform, but if there's nobody like that I just don't vote.

There's also often ballot measures during more major elections, which I always vote on because they directly impact people's lives.

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conseil wrote

The real answer is to vote for President Vermin Supreme. I don't care what country you live in.

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drfuzzyballs1996 wrote

When I do vote it's either third party or I write something in. Most of the time I'm not willing to hold my nose and vote for a democrat or republican so I'm not to blame in either line of reasoning.

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