• leave voting issues with the states and localities, where the Constitution puts it
• carefully resist calls to implement computer voting systems

Some people don't vote because they're lazy and apathetic.

Other people don't vote because they're deeply concerned about the direction in which the government is taking this country, and deeply cynical about the power of voting to change that.

What do you do if you want to change the system so much that you don't want to participate in it?

Does Voting Matter?
Should You Vote At All?

• I Don't Mind If You Keep Voting, But Do You Mind If I Keep Laughing While You Do?
• Voters Anonymous, Anyone? - Center for a Stateless Society - Open Salon
• The Lesser of Two Evils Leonard Read
• “McBama vs. America” by Craig Biddle
• The Value of Voting
• I Won't Vote! Donald J. Boudreaux
• Remember, Remember, Don’t Vote in November
• Why your vote doesn't matter
• Strike-the-Root.com Non-Voting Archive
• Two Choices for President by Mark Thornton
• Why I Don’t Vote by Mark Reynolds
• The Myth of the Wasted Vote by Charles L. Hooper
• Your Vote Counts by Robert Klassen
• Picking Neither of Two Evils, Part 2 by Bob Murphy
• But Whom Will You Root For? by Wally Conger
• Voting is Evil by Brad Edmonds
• Voting—Again by Robert Klassen
• Rock the Non-Vote, Part 1 by Gene Callahan
• Rock the Non-Vote, Part 2 by Gene Callahan
• Voting for the Lesser of Two Police States by Anthony Gregory
• The Voting Ritual by Butler Shaffer
• Austro-Athenian Empire » In Defense of Voting (sort of), Part 2
• It's Time to Get Passionate About Not Voting

• Does Your Vote Really Count? | The New American

Dialogue with Lew Rockwell

Why I Don’t Vote « LewRockwell.com Blog	Comments by Kevin Craig, Libertarian Candidate for U.S. Congress
A lot of people have asked me why I do not vote.	Me too.
1) Voting is the sacrament of the civil religion. I’m a political atheist.	I'm a political iconoclast. I like desecrating false sacraments.
2) Not voting bugs the regime, and no wonder. Such abstinence, like not complying in other ways, weakens them. What if they held an election and nobody came?	If they held an election and nobody came, the incumbents would retain power and continue ruling over us. Voting is the only way to vote them out of office.
3) It’s a pain in the neck.	I agree.
4) Your vote doesn’t count, unless the election is decided by a single vote. You are far more likely to be killed on the way to the polls than to have that happen.	Logical fallacy. Voting counts, but it may not be decisive. It sends a message.
5) The candidates itch to rule others. There is no lesser evil.	What about a candidate who is not an archist, and refuses to rule over others?
6) Politics is not our salvation. Indeed, the whole system is corrupt from top to bottom.	I agree with both sentences. On salvation, see here.

A Non-Voting Bibliography
Compiled by Wilton Alston

For general theory on non-voting and political party involvement, see:

• the late Samuel Edward Konkin III, so-called agorist, founder of The Movement of the Libertarian Left, author of The New Libertarian Manifesto (PDF), editor of the magazine New Libertarian, coiner (in 1971) of the term “minarchy.”
• the late Robert LeFevre, founder of the Freedom School and Rampart College .
• Ronald N. Neff, editor of the (currently exclusively online) magazine The Last Ditch.
• George H. Smith, Carl Watner,  and Wendy McElroy (her website), the three founders of the magazine The Voluntaryist (old web site), currently edited by Watner.

For specific articles on non-voting (with some pro-con debate), see:

• Wilton D. Alston, “Legitimizing Voting: A Modest Proposal”, Strike-the-Root.com.
• Anonymous, “Why I Refuse to Register (to Vote or Pay Taxes)”, The Voluntaryist, no. 100 (October 1999).  (Also available here.)
• Raymond William [“Bill”] Bradford, “Voting Is No Sin”, Liberty, November 1996. (A response to McElroy’s “Why I Would Not Vote…Even Against Hitler”)
• Richard O. Hammer, “Is it Wise to Vote?  Getting My Head Ready for Freedom”
• Jacob G. Hornberger, “Five Questions to Ronald N. Neff”, With Mr. Ronald N. Neff’s reply, “Ron Neff replies.”  The Last Ditch, February 3, 2002 .
• Samuel Edward Konkin III, “The Damnation of Bill Bradford”, New Libertarian. (A response to Bradford ’s “Voting Is No Sin”)
• Roderick T. Long, “Dismantling Leviathan from Within. Part I: Can We? Should We?”, Formulations, vol. 2, no. 4 (Issue no. 8) (Summer 1995).  (Also available here.)
• Roderick T. Long, “Dismantling Leviathan from Within. Part II: The Process of Reform”, Formulations, vol. 3, no. 1 (Issue no. 9) (Autumn 1995).  (Also available here.)
• Roderick T. Long, “Dismantling Leviathan from Within. Part III: Is Libertarian Political Action Self-Defeating?”, Formulations, vol. 3, no. 2 (Issue no. 10) (Winter 1995–1996).  (Also available here.)
• Roderick T. Long, “Dismantling Leviathan from Within. Part IV: The Sons of Brutus.” Formulations, vol. 3, no. 3 (Issue no. 11) (Spring 1996).  (Also available here.)
• Wendy McElroy, “Neither Bullets nor Ballots”, The Voluntaryist, no. 1 (October 1982). (Also available here.) Reprinted (“in slightly alterered form”) as Introduction to Carl Watner, Wendy McElroy & George H. Smith, Neither Bullets nor Ballots: Essays on Voluntaryism (Voluntaryists, 1983).  (Also available here.)
• Wendy McElroy, “Climbing Off the Bandwagon”, The Voluntaryist, no. 3 (February 1983).  (Also available here and here.)
• Wendy McElroy, “Why I Would Not Vote…Even Against Hitler”, Liberty, May 1996. Reprinted in The Voluntaryist, no. 85 (April 1997).  (Reprint version also available here and here.)
• Stefan Molyneux, “My Son: Klan Reformer”, Strike-the-Root.com.  (This is a personal favorite of mine.)
• Ronald N. Neff, “Oh, sure . . . your vote matters!” The Last Ditch,  November 8, 2000 .
• Ronald N. Neff, “Why I am not a Libertarian”, The Last Ditch,  November 28, 2000 .
• Ronald N. Neff, “Ron Paul’s Gift”, The Last Ditch, September 19, 2001 .
• Ronald N. Neff, “Fifty Ron Pauls and the Government with Only One Law”, The Last Ditch, September 19, 2001 .  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
• Hans Sherrer, “Non-Voting as an Act of Secession”, The Voluntaryist, no. 114 (3^rd Quarter 2002).  (Also available here.)
• George H. Smith, “The Ethics of Voting — Part I”, The Voluntaryist, no. 1 (October 1982).  (Also avaliable here.)
• George H. Smith, “The Ethics of Voting — Part II”, The Voluntaryist, no. 2 (December 1982).  (Also available here.)
• George H. Smith, “The Ethics of Voting — Part III”, The Voluntaryist, no. 4 (April 1983).  (Also available here.)
• George H. Smith, “Party Dialogue”, New Libertarian, vol. IV, no. 8 (December 1980–February 1981). Reprinted in Carl Watner, Wendy McElroy & George H. Smith, Neither Bullets nor Ballots: Essays on Voluntaryism (Voluntaryists, 1983).
• Joe Sobran. “How to Vote for Liberty”, Sobran’s: The Real News of the Month,
• October 26, 2004 . Reprinted in The Voluntaryist, no. 126 (3^rd quarter 2005).  (Reprint version also available here.)
• Geoff Turecek. “An Open Letter to Voters: Please Don't”, Strike-the-Root.com.
• Carl Watner. “Cultivate Your Own Garden: No Truck with Politics”, The Voluntaryist, no. 40 (October 1989).  (Also available here.)
• Carl Watner. “Harry Browne — Have You Forgotten?: "The Lesser of Two Evils is Still Evil"”, The Voluntaryist, no. 85 (April 1997).  (Also available here.)
• Carl Watner. “Is Voting an Act of Violence?” The Voluntaryist, no. 103 (April 2000). (Also available here.)
Even more articles may be reached via online repositories:
• The Against Politics Web page “The Calculus of Voting”
• The LewRockwell.com Non-Voting Archive.  (Butler Shaffer, among others, has some great stuff in this archive!)
• The No Treason Voting Archive.
• The Strike The Root Non-Voting Archive.  (Several, but not all, of the articles noted here can be found in this archive!)
• The Voluntaryist’s list of “Additional essays related to non-voting and The Dissenting Electorate.”
• Books on non-voting include:
• Sy Leon. None of the Above: The Lesser of Two Evils . . . Is Evil.  (With an Introduction by Harry Browne.)  Fabian Publishing Co., 1976.
• Sy Leon. None of the Above: Why Non-Voters Are America’s Political Majority. 2^nd ed., rev. ed. (re-titled) with a new Introduction by John Pugsley. Fox & Wilkes, 1996.
• Carl Watner, Wendy McElroy & George H. Smith. Neither Bullets nor Ballots: Essays on Voluntaryism. Voluntaryists, 1983. (See also, The Voluntaryist bibliography.)
• Carl Watner, ed. I Must Speak Out: The Best of The Voluntaryist 1982–1999 (PDF). San Francisco, California: Fox & Wilkes, 1999.  Table of Contents and Other Material.
• Carl Watner with Wendy McElroy, eds. Dissenting Electorate: Those Who Refuse to Vote and the Legitimacy of Their Opposition (Introduction Only)  (Also available here.) McFarland & Company, 2000.  Table of Contents, along with some other material, available here.

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• ELECTION LAWS (LP)
• ELECTION REFORM (CalifLP, 2000)
• Electoral Madness
• Election Guardians
• High-tech election fiascos
• Scoop: Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists

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Who Can a Christian Vote For?

• Nobody who believes he is his own god.
• Nobody who will use government force to coercively redistribute even one penny of someone else's wealth. Taxation is theft.
• Someone who will use the "bully pulpit" to change hearts and minds in favor of "Liberty Under God." That would be "bully."
• Good luck finding such a candidate.

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OK, So What Do I Do if I Don't Vote?

1. Write a letter to decision-makers.
   Letters count for 6 votes, according to some legislators. (For every letter received, the assumption is made that 6 others feel the same way, but didn't take time to write.)
2. Write a letter to decision-takers.
   Unelected bureaucrats follow the rules set by decision-makers. Tell them to exercise their conscience.
   Bend over backwards, do whatever it takes, go the second mile, don't even give the possible appearance of being threatening, or your letter will be forwarded to Homeland Security.
3. Persuade friends to write letters.
   Convincing one friend to write a letter is like voting 6 more times.

The Sacrament of Statism

First consider these webages:

• Statism - the worship of the State
• Idolatry
• Cult - Political Parties
• Salvation - the State as Messiah

Then consider these links [offsite]

• national ritual [pdf]
• Time to perform our 'civic sacrament' - StamfordAdvocate
• Voting: A right, privilege, duty, 'civic sacrament' « My Point Exactly
• Voting is a civic sacrament. - ThinkExist
• HuntsvilleOnline - Voting Is A Civic Sacrament
• OpEdNews - Article: The Sacrament of Democracy
• Civic Sacrament
• Shannyn Moore: The Sacrament of Democracy
• The Beggar's Bowl: The Sacrament of Voting
• The BRAD BLOG : The Sacrament of Democracy
• OpEdNews - Article: The Sacrament of Democracy
• Voting is a civic sacrament. - ThinkExist
• Muslim Ballots: “Voting is a civic sacrament.”
• Right to Vote

next: Campaign Finance, Corruption and the Oath of Office