A DUTY NOT TO VOTE Paul Sheehy Abstract The view that there is a duty to vote in a fair and free democracy has been a source of philosophical debate. In this paper I turn from the question of whether there is a positive duty to vote to whether there can be a duty not to vote in a ‘decent’ democratic state. Considerations of fairness and of respect for one’s peers underpin an argument that a voter who is indifferent about the outcome of an election has a duty not to cast her ballot. This is not an argument against a general duty to vote, other things being equal, but points to one of the ways in which such a duty can be undermined or outweighed by competing considerations. 1. Introduction There is a widely held belief that a citizen of a free and fair democracy has a duty to vote in its elections and referenda when she is eligible to do so. The grounds for this duty can be explained and justified in a number of ways. Appeal may be made to considerations of overall utility. Voting is sometimes under- stood in terms of its expressive role, and the duty a person has to align himself with morally better rather than worse candidates, parties or options. Alternatively, the duty can be based on the universalisability of the requirement that a citizen vote. Or, voting may be seen as intrinsically valuable or as an essential element in the flourishing of a person qua citizen; or, the duty may arise because voting has an instrumental role in securing and promot- ing certain intrinsically valuable freedoms. I shall not assess the merits of these or any other argument for the duty to vote. 1 Instead I shall ask whether there can also be a duty not to vote in a free and fair democracy. I shall explain that there is a basis for holding citizens who are indifferent about the outcome of an election to be under a duty to refrain from voting. Considerations of fairness and of respect owed to one’s fellow ª Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2002, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. Ratio (new series) XV 1 March 2002 0034–0006 1 See L. Lomasky and G. Brennan ‘Is There A Duty To Vote?’, Social Philosophy and Policy (2000) for a recent critical overview of such arguments.