Abstaining Citizenship: On Some Deliberative and Epistocratic Understandings of The Act of Refraining From Voting

Democratic voting has a centrality value as a fair procedure and continues to be a benchmark of citizenship rights and responsibilities. Refraining from voting could involve under certain circumstances a genuine deliberative commitment as a realization of the rights of participation, and citizens could choose to abstain as a way of implementing democratic conditions. Nevertheless, I will be also concerned with other understanding of voting as a citizens’ right and a moral issue. In the talk I will cast doubts on elitist and epistocratic proposals that, taking seriously both the evidences of widespread citizen incompetence and the relevance of entrusting the political decision to a few specialists, assert that citizens have no obligation to vote, but rather a moral duty to abstain from bad voting, or that even argue for restricting suffrage when the voters are likely to be irresponsibly ignorant, arbitrary or malicious and to facilitate harmful decision making.