Josh Anderson for The New York Times

The Issue

It is election day, and here in New York we are voting for mayor, or, more accurately, not voting. The campaign of the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has predicted that fewer than a third of registered voters will make it to the polls. Responding to our country’s typically low turnouts, some groups strive to get people to vote, not for anyone in particular, but as an expression of civic virtue (vote for the candidate of your choice, but vote). Should we support nonpartisan efforts to get people to fulfill this putative duty of citizenship?

The Argument

We should not. It is a fine thing to rally support for a person or a policy you esteem. It is reasonable to urge your neighbors to be informed about issues that affect your community. But it is irresponsible to encourage the unaware to put their ignorance into action so aimlessly. “Just vote” doesn’t express civic virtue; it’s sentimentality. You might as well urge the unpracticed to use power tools or Rollerblade. Simultaneously. At least they’d injure only themselves.

We are indeed an ignorant people. A 2008 survey found that only 18 percent of Americans could name all three of the following: the U.S. secretary of state, the British prime minister and the party that controls the U.S. House of Representatives. A 2009 study revealed that only about half of adults know how long it takes the earth to orbit the sun. Healthcare, the big issue of the day? Thirty-nine percent of Americans want government to “stay out of Medicare.” And then there’s bison awareness. The Wildlife Conservation Society asked 2,000 Americans more than 50 questions about bison. Apparently we are stunningly uneducated about bison affairs. Even more disturbing is that 2,000 Americans were willing to answer 50 questions about bison: talk about too much free time.

In our defense, politics is a complicated business, and few of us have the time or training or inclination to become sophisticated about all that we are asked to vote on. In other eras and other places, we assigned that task to a political party, affiliating ourselves with one that reflected our values and advanced our interests, choosing for example to vote Labor or Conservative. But what does it mean to vote Democratic when that party includes both Ben Nelson and Barney Frank? There’s such a thing as too big a tent, one so vast and shapeless that it no longer encompasses a shared sense of the public good.

In any case, voting is not an ethical obligation. Nor is it required by American law; voting is something citizens may do, not something we must, like pay taxes and attend school and, at various times in our history, perform military service. Many democracies have tried compulsory voting. Belgium, for example, introduced such a requirement as early as 1892, Argentina in 1914. Some later rescinded these measures, and where they remain they are not always vigorously enforced.

One rationale for regarding voting as a duty is that to confer legitimacy on laws and leaders requires a broad expression of the public will. If merely a third of registered voters participate in today’s mayoral election, and just over half of them vote for, say, Michael Bloomberg, he’ll gain office with the formal endorsement of only one-sixth of the electorate. Factor in potentially eligible voters who did not register and that number gets smaller. It shrinks further when you include non-citizens and New Yorkers too young to vote. The mayor is apt to be reelected by fewer than 10 percent of us. Some democracy. But while that outcome may be unsettling, it does not follow that voting is an ethical duty. What sort of legitimacy is gained by shoving a voter into a booth where he finds no candidate he genuinely wants to support?

National efforts like MTV’s Rock the Vote are particularly idiotic (and not just because of that network’s determination to include the word “rock” in its every pronouncement, a sort of verbal MSG, to sprinkle on a little pseudo-hipness). A nonpartisan voter drive encourages people to vote who may well vote against you. Aren’t psychiatrists dismayed when a patient acts self-destructively?

More accurately, Rock the Vote and its ilk would be idiotic if they were effective. Happily, these endeavors are unlikely to alter the outcome of an election. A nonpartisan push is apt to rally Republicans as well as Democrats, liberals as well as conservatives, who will vote in the same proportions as those already inclined to go to the polls. The net result: nothing, save for the warm glow of civic virtue that comes from bullying your neighbors into pulling a lever, any lever.

This is not to argue against partisan efforts to get out the vote. It is admirable to work for the good of your family, your neighbors, your nation. Sometimes the way to do that is to vote in support of a particular candidate or ballot measure. When, for example, toxic air threatens your children, or a loopy cult aims to take over your local school board, and the ballot offers meaningful recourse, then voting rises to the level of a moral duty. That is, in certain situations ethics compels you not merely to vote but to vote a particular way. In such cases, the important consideration is not whether to fire a pistol, but in what direction.