If You’re Not Sure You’ll Vote, Read This First | Opinion

According to new polling from The Wall Street Journal, a mere 3 percent of Americans are undecided about which presidential candidate they support. A far larger share of Americans—nearly a third of adults—is undecided about whether they will vote at all.
The elections of 2018, 2020 and 2022 were three of the highest-turnout elections of their respective types in decades. But according to research by Ipsos, voters are slightly less enthusiastic this cycle across most demographics. Already earlier this year, Gallup found that enthusiasm for voting was greater at similar points in the 2020, 2008 and 2004 presidential primary seasons than it is today, but was lower in 2000, 2012 and 2016.
While some people feel like their vote won’t make a difference, many others are simply exhausted—and in some cases alienated or confused—by our political environment.
These are completely reasonable sentiments, but I want to share why you really should vote anyway.
Many people believe their vote is inconsequential. And statistically, each of our votes has a small likelihood of being decisive in an election where 155 million votes are cast. Most Americans live in states and congressional districts where the results are not remotely in question.
I’m writing this column from Phoenix, Arizona—one of several swing states where that argument is simply not true. The 2020 presidential election was decided by a mere 10,457 votes here, 11,779 votes in Georgia, 33,596 votes in Nevada, and 80,555 votes in Pennsylvania.
But outside Arizona and other swing states, there are down-ballot races for governor, Congress, state-level legislators, and even mayors, who each hold significant power over the institutions that shape your life and help society run. Those local elections will be decided by even fewer votes than the 2020 presidential election in Arizona, often just a few hundred. That is where you are likely to make your mark.
But what mark should you make? If you have avoided politics and feel alienated by America’s leaders, you may feel uncertain about the choices before you. But there are orientational questions you can answer to determine your votes:
1) Do you believe there is a single cultural understanding of America that must be preserved (former President Donald Trump and Republicans) or that America is a nation that is always evolving and strong because it embraces different perspectives (Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats)?
2) Should government decisions be guided by science and trained experts who address public problems (Harris and Democrats) or be left to unconstrained markets and the chief executive (Trump and Republicans)?
3) Should America retreat from foreign relations to focus on domestic matters (Trump and Republicans) or remain engaged in shaping the world through its relationships with other countries (Harris and Democrats)?
Beyond these admittedly general orientational questions, you can always consult a non-partisan issue list that presents information on where candidates stand.
Still, you may feel exhausted. Here in Phoenix, nearly every television ad interrupting a Sunday football game or evening sitcom is paid for by one campaign or another. Canvassers are streaming through neighborhoods, yard signs litter the desert landscape, and text message notifications buzz with ever more requests for donations. This full-court press was once a phenomenon of the autumn election season every four years, but Arizonans had barely moved past the controversies of the last two election cycles when the next one began.
Even more frustrating perhaps, like in other states, it’s many of the same old characters involved. Of course, Trump is on the ballot again. But in Arizona, so is Kari Lake—the election denier who lost a 2022 gubernatorial campaign and is now running for the U.S. Senate. And Arizona Democrats are running against her with much of the same rhetoric that persuaded voters to reject her two years ago.
Across all contests, both Republican and Democratic campaigns portray the other side as an existential threat. Outrage permeates social media feeds. And through all the shouting and vitriol, for the many Americans who do not regularly follow political developments, it can be hard to determine who is telling the truth and who is misinforming audiences. The natural response is to just tune out.
According to a recent Associated Press-NORC poll, independents—who follow politics disproportionately less than other Americans—report feeling less excited, less interested, and less anxious than people who identify as a Democrat or Republican.
Democracies rely on a mix of these “alert” and “inert” citizens—respectively, activists who regularly follow political developments and pursue their agendas through civic voluntarism, and people who are civically inactive or less active. This way, governments are accountable to the citizens, but not to the extent that everyday business is obstructed. If every political issue was as scrutinized and inflamed as immigration, for example, it would reproduce the same paralysis. So inert citizens contribute to a balanced civic sphere that allows government to get things done.
But elections are not every day. They are milestones at which both alert and inert citizens are needed to evaluate options for political leadership. Inert citizens: elections are your time to shine, even if it means picking the better of two dissatisfying options.
In the end, the ability to vote is not just a citizen’s responsibility; it is a privilege that generations of people have fought hard to attain and protect. In my research, I have interacted with hundreds of people from foreign countries who risked their lives to resist fascists and dictators who suppressed their right to vote, assaulted opponents, and undercut the integrity of democratic institutions—in the defiant spirit of America’s founders.
As flawed as America’s political system is, your vote has remained sacred for nearly 250 years. And even if you feel uninspired by the options before you, you can feel inspired by the sacrifices people have made to grant you these options in the first place.
Justin Gest (@_JustinGest) is a Newsweek columnist. He is a professor and director of the Public Policy program at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He is the author of six books on the politics of immigration and demographic change, including his newest, Majority Minority.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.