Abstention is a term in
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
procedure for when a participant in a
vote
Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holde ...
either does not go to vote (on election day) or, in
parliamentary procedure
Parliamentary procedure is the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Its object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense or t ...
, is present during the vote, but does not cast a
ballot. Abstention must be contrasted with "
blank vote
A protest vote (also called a blank, null, spoiled, or " none of the above" vote) is a vote cast in an election to demonstrate dissatisfaction with the choice of candidates or the current political system. Protest voting takes a variety of forms ...
", in which a voter casts a ballot willfully made invalid by marking it wrongly or by not marking anything at all. A "blank (or white) voter" has voted, although their vote may be considered a
spoilt vote, depending on each legislation, while an abstaining voter has not voted. Both forms (abstention and blank vote) may or may not, depending on the circumstances, be considered to be a
protest vote (also known as a "blank vote" or "white vote").
An abstention may be used to indicate the voting individual's ambivalence about the measure, or mild disapproval that does not rise to the level of active opposition. Abstention can also be used when someone has a certain position about an issue, but since the popular sentiment supports the opposite, it might not be politically expedient to vote according to their conscience. A person may also abstain when they do not feel adequately informed about the issue at hand, or have not participated in relevant discussion. In parliamentary procedure, a member may be required to abstain in the case of a real or perceived
conflict of interest
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
.
Abstentions do not count in tallying the vote negatively or positively; when members abstain, they are in effect attending only to contribute to a
quorum
A quorum is the minimum number of members of a deliberative assembly (a body that uses parliamentary procedure, such as a legislature) necessary to conduct the business of that group. According to ''Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised'', the ...
. White votes, however, may be counted in the total of votes, depending on the legislation.
Active abstention
An active abstention can occur where a voter votes in a way that balances out their vote as if they had never voted. This has occurred many times in the
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England.
The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 me ...
. During a division (a process where a yes/no vote occurs to agree or disagree to a motion), a
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
may actively abstain by voting both "yes" and "no". This is effectively the same as not voting at all, as the outcome will not be changed by the active abstention. However, in the
House of Lords of the United Kingdom
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in ...
, active abstention is not possible as a Lord voting both ways will be removed from the list of votes.
In another manner, an intentionally
spoilt vote could be interpreted as an active abstention. An intentionally spoilt vote is caused by a voter who turns to an election and invalidates the ballot paper in some way. Because of the nature of an abstention, only intentionally spoiled ballots could be counted as an active abstention.
International and national parliamentary procedures
![Canadaelections2011](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Canadaelections2011.png)
In the
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...
, representatives of the five countries holding a
veto
A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto ...
power (the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
) sometimes abstain rather than vetoing a measure about which they are less than enthusiastic, particularly if the
measure
Measure may refer to:
* Measurement, the assignment of a number to a characteristic of an object or event
Law
* Ballot measure, proposed legislation in the United States
* Church of England Measure, legislation of the Church of England
* Mea ...
otherwise has broad support. By convention, their abstention does not block the measure. If a majority of members of the
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
or one of its
committees
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
abstain on a measure, then the measure fails.
In the
Council of the European Union
The Council of the European Union, often referred to in the treaties and other official documents simply as the Council, and informally known as the Council of Ministers, is the third of the seven Institutions of the European Union (EU) as ...
, an abstention on a matter decided by unanimity has the effect of a ''yes'' vote; on matters decided by
qualified majority it has an effect of a ''no'' vote.
In the
Italian Senate
The Senate of the Republic ( it, Senato della Repubblica), or simply the Senate ( it, Senato), is the upper house of the bicameral Italian Parliament (the other being the Chamber of Deputies). The two houses together form a perfect bicameral sy ...
, an abstention used to have the effects of a ''no'' vote. This was changed in 2017, when it was established that a measure only needed for the number of ''yes'' votes to be higher than the number of ''no'' votes in order to pass, with abstentions being counted neither as ''yes'' votes nor as ''no'' votes.
In the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...
and many other legislatures, members may vote "present" rather than for or against a bill or resolution, which has the effect of an abstention.
In the
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
, the
Presiding Officer calls each senator's name alphabetically, and, if abstaining, the senator must give a reason for the abstention. Members may decline to vote, in committee or on the floor, on any matter which they believe would be a conflict of interest.
An example of a conflict was when Senator
Mitch McConnell
Addison Mitchell McConnell III (born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and retired attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky and the Senate minority leader since 2021. Currently in his seventh term, McConne ...
abstained when his wife
Elaine Chao was nominated to positions that needed to be confirmed by the Senate, the most recent was on January 31 2017 when Chao was confirmed as Transportation Secretary.
When a senator is nominated for a position that needs to be confirmed by the Senate, that senator is expected to vote "present", such as occurred in 2013 when
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party (Unite ...
was nominated for the position of
Secretary of State and voted "present" rather than vote for his own confirmation.
Justification
In support for this
non-political
Apoliticism is apathy or antipathy towards all political affiliations. A person may be described as apolitical if they are uninterested or uninvolved in politics. Being apolitical can also refer to situations in which people take an unbiased pos ...
strategy, some non-voters claim that voting does not make any positive difference. "If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal" is an oft-cited sentiment attributed to
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
.
In addition to strategic non-voters, there are also ''ethical non-voters'', those who reject voting outright, not merely as an ineffective tactic for change, but moreover because they view the act as either a grant of consent to be governed by the
state, a means of imposing illegitimate control over one's countrymen, or both. Thus, this view holds that through voting, one necessarily finds themselves violating the
non-aggression principle.
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest" ...
noted that whether a person votes for the winning candidate, votes for a losing candidate, or abstains from voting, he will be deemed to have consented to the rule of the winning candidate, if they were to follow the doctrine of Blackstone of which Spencer stated "A rather awkward doctrine this."
Criticisms
Murray Rothbard, while a libertarian himself, criticized the ''
New Libertarian Manifesto
''New Libertarian Manifesto'' is a libertarianism, libertarian philosophy, philosophical treatise by Samuel Edward Konkin III. It is the first explanation of agorism, a philosophy created by Konkin. Konkin proffers various arguments of how a free ...
''s arguments that voting is immoral or undesirable:
Samuel Edward Konkin III
Samuel Edward Konkin III (8 July 1947 – 23 February 2004), also known as SEK3, was an American libertarian philosopher and Austrian school economist. As the author of the publication '' New Libertarian Manifesto'', he was a proponent of a polit ...
responded:
Alternatives
The german philosopher and founder of the "Party of nonvoters" (''
Partei der Nichtwähler'')
Werner Peters describes in his 2021 published book "Nonvoters into parliament - Refreshment of democracy" (''Nichtwähler ins Parlament – Auffrischung der Demokratie'') an institutionalisation of
nonvoter proportions. Peters proposes to treat abstentions like regular votes and allocate proportionatly the number of abstentions to
seats. Though other than with regular votes, seats are offered after the vote to randomly chosen citizens, similar to
citizens' assemblies
A citizens' assembly (also known as citizens' jury or citizens' panel or people's jury or policy jury or citizens' initiative review or consensus conference or citizens' convention) is a body formed from randomly selected citizens to deliberat ...
.
See also
*
Absenteeism
Absenteeism is a habitual pattern of absence from a duty or obligation without good reason. Generally, absenteeism is unplanned absences. Absenteeism has been viewed as an indicator of poor individual performance, as well as a breach of an implici ...
*
Abstentionism
*
Apolitical
*
Criticisms of electoralism
*
Diplomatic illness Diplomatic illness is the practice amongst diplomats and Minister (government), government ministers of feigning illness, or another debilitating condition, to avoid engaging in diplomatic or social engagements. The excuse of ill-health is designed ...
*
Election boycott
*
Non-politics
Apoliticism is apathy or antipathy towards all political affiliations. A person may be described as apolitical if they are uninterested or uninvolved in politics. Being apolitical can also refer to situations in which people take an unbiased po ...
*
None of the above
"None of the above" (NOTA), or none for short, also known as "against all" or a "scratch" vote, is a ballot option in some jurisdictions or organizations, designed to allow the voter to indicate disapproval of the candidates in a voting system. ...
*
None of These Candidates
*
Parliamentary procedure
Parliamentary procedure is the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Its object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense or t ...
*
Political alienation
*
Power elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...
*
Protest vote
*
References
{{Reflist
Elections
United Nations Human Rights Committee case law
Libertarian theory
Anarchist theory
Voting theory