Electoral abstention is on the rise. In new and established democracies alike, there has in recent decades been an increase in the share of enfranchised citizens who voluntarily refrain from voting in legislative, presidential, and other political elections.
In response to this development normative political theory has produced an innovative body of work focusing on electoral participation. Examining non-voting from a principled, moral perspective, this literature notably explores to what extent a democratic state can justifiably render voting a legal obligation, and to what extent voting in elections might be a moral obligation.
But despite its advances, the philosophy of electoral participation still has important lacunas and shortcomings. One, although several philosophers of electoral participation indicate that non-voting might sometimes be morally permissible, the scope and the moral grounds of permissible non-voting remain ill-defined. Two, insofar as democratic states have policies of optional voting, they must have a procedure for handling or absorbing the non-votes that likely occur in elections. Yet, the philosophy of electoral participation offers no account of how democratic electoral systems can best absorb non-votes. And three, the philosophy of electoral participation does not yet shed light on the moral consequences that non-voting might engender for the individual non-voter: no account exists yet of how not voting might affect a citizen’s moral entitlements and responsibilities.
Remedying these three lacunas has been the overall scientific objective of DevEthAc. It has sought to morally assess non-voting and give an clear account of the extent to which it is morally permissible and impermissible respectively. The project has further sought to give an account of how a democratic electoral system can best absorb non-votes. And it has aimed to give an account of the moral consequences that non-voting may have for individual non-voters.
