a few points about christian citizenship and the ethics of voting

1. Just as a person may cast a vote in good faith, so may a person abstain from casting their vote in good faith.

2. Abstaining does not constitute de facto rejection or support of any candidate.

3. The rules and process for casting a ballot do not tally protest or opposition votes. A vote can only be cast *for* a candidate. The US govt doesn’t calculate voter motivations.

4. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for an evil. And bc voting does not meet the standards of a borderline ethical case, one may withhold a vote in good conscience.

5. Because votes can only be cast in favor of a candidate, a voter must accept some responsibility for contributing materially/causally to the candidates appointment if they are to win.

6. It is not logically or ethically true that opposition to one candidate commits one to supporting alternate candidate.

7. It may happen that if a large enough bloc of similarly disposed voters abstain that an alternate candidate may win, but that is an accidental consequence.

8. It is regrettable that voting has in practice come to totalize political action, such that many presume that voting encompasses civic responsibility. Some even find it difficult to name a distinctly political activity that *isn’t* voting.

9. For a variety of reasons the church has not historically considered voting to be among it’s most pivotal civic tasks, and certainly not its *primary* task. It is a task one may or may not undertake for reasons of conscience.

10. On the Christian account, a vote is cast as a disciple of Jesus Christ or not all, and this one should be confident that the vote cast is an act of obedience. It’s is the very extreme rarity that Christ may call someone to act upon a lesser evil in some borderline case.

11. It is not enough to ask if God may *excuse* the vote, but that the felt imperative is consistent with his command.

11. Nor is it enough to justify a vote on in this regard by appeal to some consequentialist principle. The consequentialist framework igenerally poor at providing positive Christian warrant for future political possibilities.

11. If you feel you have sufficiently comprehensive knowledge of your favored candidates character and platform to vote in their favor, then on principle you should follow conscience. If not, then do not.

12. Let’s please refrain from repeating the plainly false dichotomy that to oppose a candidate requires support of another. It doesn’t. Faithful, thinking people of good conscience may have entirely well formed reasons for withholding vote.