I've always wondered why not voting is considered the same as, well, how can I best describe it? It's as if you don't vote, then it's like you don't exist, at least in the sense of having voting rights. If there is an election that ends 1-1 but you didn't vote, then that's the final result, 1-1, which would have been equally true if you had your citizenship in some other country, like Estonia, where it's pretty easy to vote, unless you are trying to vote in an American election, which is hard even for Estonians. In other words, if you don't vote, then you might as well not exist, at least from the perspective of the final tally, since it was never possible to influence the result at all.
There are others who take this a step further - though I would argue it's a step backward, a regression of logic, mathematics, and civics - suggesting that by not voting, you vote for the other guy, because, you know, voting isn't about your choice, but rather ensuring that the autofill doesn't automatically assign your ballot, by magic, to the person you wouldn't have voted for, which they magically know about even though you didn't vote. Now what is this crap? Again, the example of the 1-1 vote, where you prefer one of the candidates. If you vote for the other guy, it would be 2-1, and your candidate would lose. But guess what, folks, since you didn't vote, the tally remains 1-1. Is this what we mean by a vote for the other guy? People who trot out this "no vote means voting for the other guy" logic should probably skip voting themselves and spend the day in a third-grade math class.
I think the way to analyze this situation is to regard it as a split vote. This makes some sense to me - if you don't really know which candidate you prefer, then it might be a bit daunting to choose one or the other. You know those bars where you can pay for a drink, then the bartender spins the wheel and you get whatever it lands on? Why would those people vote? Let's try, for the last time, that really convenient example of the 1-1 vote. Imagine if the tiebreaking vote was being cast by some guy who can't choose between an IIPA or a DIPA, so he goes to the roulette wheel and comes back with a PBR. You want him to break the tie? He can't make a decision, and he just spent $8 on a $3 draft. I think we're better off just going to the tiebreaker, which I believe is a penalty shootout involving England.
The reason I bring up all this nonsense today is because these mayoral elections, which are referred to as "off-cycle", are notorious for low turnout. The arguments made by the people who understand this stuff, who know what they are talking about, can explain this far better than me. But this nous isn't readily demonstrated by your average citizen, who will simply demand that you vote for no reason except that you should vote because you should vote. But if I don't know the difference, why should I make the difference? Maybe we can give everyone two votes, both of which can be allocated to one candidate if you feel strongly about one choice or the other, to encourage some of these wishy-washy folks who are standing on the sidelines. Or maybe we can just point to those above paragraphs, and remind them that if you really want to split your choice, then you can just leave the ballot blank. I've never done the full blank, I've only come close, but I know by now that they'll never count the bubbles before giving you that sticker. It'll say you voted, no matter how much you actually did, since by walking through that door you made the only important decision you can ever make on election day, or any day really, from your whole life - deciding to show up.
