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I am what you might call a disillusioned voter. Over the past year I have become passionately convinced that elected officials, in all levels of government, and irrespective of the major party they affiliate with, are not working with Americans' best interests in mind. They are more concerned with taking personal jabs at each other than they are working together to solve problems affecting us at the local, state and federal level. They only take into account the needs of the most vocal, influential, wealthy or powerful individuals. They only care about staying in office as long as possible, at any cost, instead of taking the time to listen and truly understand their constituents needs. They all regurgitate the same talking points, how the other party is evil and you can't trust them, instead of being bridge-builders and leaders. I could go on.
I've become so convicted in this, that I believe the best way to vote is to cast a completely black ballot.
Reasons:
-Your ballot is still counted, and will contribute to voter turnout statistics.
-You have the right to cast a vote for no one.
-You don't have to worry about picking the lesser of two evils, since you're not making a selection at all.
-Your vote for no one affirms that you believe democratic processes are important, and your lack of selection communicates dissatisfaction with the major parties. A sizable voter turnout with no candidates selected may cause them to change their platform to appeal to dissatisfied voters.
Arguments against this that I am not persuaded by:
"But that means the [party/candidate I oppose] will win." Yes, that will likely happen. No, it does not bother me, nor does it pursuade me. And that will be the case unless and until we are able to get more effective leaders on the ballot. It may very well take a darker period in our country's history to wake enough people up to the issues with the two-party system.
"But aren't there things that [major party] supports that you also support?" Yes, but I do not wish to involve myself in partisan politics, anymore. I believe that candidate selection should be based on their character, their ability to be charitable, kind, compassionate, driven, and most importantly, a leader who is willing to actively listen. I want nothing to do with the whole, "the other party is bad so you must vote for me" BS. I could care less about political parties at this point. Get more decent human beings up for election and then I'll consider voting for them.
"But you should vote to support [social issues]." I'm not voting to support a cause. I'm voting to find the most qualified candidate.
"It's anti-democratic not to pick a candidate." It's anti-democratic to not show up at the polls. It is completely democratic to cast a blank ballot. You're freely communicating that no candidates are fit to hold office.
"Then vote for an independent or minor party candidate." Independant candidates are not always on the ballot and with the stranglehold the major parties have on our election processes, minor parties will never gain a meaningful foothold in public offices. Ranked choice voting and citizen-funded elections would help, but no major party candidate would support it because it means the major parties would have less influence.
"But you need to vote this way or with this perspective, because reasons." No I don't. I have the right to cast my vote how I see fit, just as you do. I'm really not a fan of collective ideologies surrounding voting.
Other than the above, I am willing to hear any other arguments.
I came to similar conclusions as you a long time ago without much disillusionment about politics because of the simple math of voting: the only way that my vote matters in terms of who gets elected is if one of the elections in which I voted was decided by exactly 1 vote, after all the recounts and such, and the odds of that happening are so astronomically small that the very real guaranteed cost of taking the time and effort to go to a place to vote or to fill out a form and mail it in aren't worth it. However, I voted in the 2016 and 2020 US elections for 2 different reasons, which you might find compelling.
First of all, I don't think I'm a very good liar, so I wanted to place myself in a situation that I wouldn't have to lie convincingly. Given that, I wanted to honestly be able to say that I voted for the first woman president of the United States merely for the historic reasons (whether or not I think the whole "first person of [x] in position [y]" should be historic, it is historic) which is why I voted in 2016. Didn't quite work out that way, but the chance of positive upside seemed worth the cost. In 2020, I voted for Biden, because I wanted to be able to honestly say that I helped to vote out Donald Trump from the White House, lest I face severe negative consequences from people who consider not voting against Trump to be a mortal sin. Of course, the exact mirror situation could happen with people considering not voting for Trump to be a mortal sin, but my own assessment of my risk was that Biden supporters were far more likely to enact such negative consequences on me than Trump supporters. I'm not sure I'll vote for Biden again this year rather than abstaining like I did in 2012, since the fervor to keep Biden in the White House while preventing Trump from getting back in, for some reason, doesn't feel as strong now as the fervor to knock Trump out of the White House in 2020 (I'm guessing that Covid & the riots of that year probably had a lot to do with it).
I think this is underselling it a bit: my mental model as a self-identified swing voter is that my vote or the votes of others like me could be the deciding factor in an otherwise-close race. My vote is worthwhile, because if everyone who felt that way voted together, it would actually merit attention from The Powers That Be.
But I will also support casting a blank ballot as a better, valid protest vote over not casting a ballot at all.
I used to think somewhat like this, but I realized that whether or not I decided to vote, I wouldn't affect the behavior or votes of others like me. Others like me will make their decisions on whether/who to vote based on their own beliefs and values. Those beliefs and values will likely be similar to mine, and so their decisions will likely be similar to mine, but it's not as if me changing my mind now to vote would influence them to make similar decisions.
It's not that it would influence them, it's that the hundreds/tens of thousands of other "you"s are also considering the exact same choice. If all ~75,000 of the statistically equivalent "me"s out there in the country all decide 'who cares about my 1 vote', then we may all tip to the side of not voting. But maybe if I decide that I must be part of a statistical block of similar people rather than a super unique individual, then maybe all the "me"s also decide that, and we end up voting anyway.
At least that's how I like to think of it (even if I'm overestimating the number of "me"s out there, on any given simple issue it grows much larger).
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