Tomorrow is Election Day

Tomorrow is Election Day. And it is customary to urge everyone to vote. But I differ with that sentiment. I believe that not voting, if you have a good reason, is a perfectly good option. But if you don't vote, let it be because you really mean your vote to be an abstention.

There are specific contests on the ballot for me tomorrow that I will consciously abstain in. For example, I have already given my reasons for abstaining in elections for the Board of Education. There is a question on the ballot tomorrow about amending the State Constitution to change the qualifications for judges in one court in the City of Baltimore. Because it's a State Constitutionsl requirement, everybody in the whole State is entitled to vote on this. I would favor taking things like this out of the State Constitution entirely. But since they haven't put that question on the ballot, all I can see myself doing is abstaining. In all these, though, my abstention is deliberate. If you don't vote because you deliberately mean to abstain, that is reasonable. Otherwise, if you don't vote, you are failing your civic obligation.

So, instead of telling people to vote tomorrow, I am saying in this post, "Vote, unless you really mean to abstain!"