As the election approaches, many citizens–particularly Christian citizens–are saying that they are not going to vote at all.
A study has found that some 104 million people classified as “people of faith” are not planning to vote this election. This includes 41 million “born-again Christians.” Rob Brunansky calculates that this comes to almost half of American evangelicals!
Reasons given by the Christians who are not planning to vote in November include a lack of interest in politics (68%), disliking both major party presidential candidates (57%), believing that their vote will not make a difference (52%), and believing that the election results will be manipulated (48%).
I’m not going to try to guilt anyone into voting. “None of the above” strikes me as a legitimate option. But I’d like us to talk about this.
Are some of you in that number of non-voters? What is the case for not voting? How about the option of going to the polling place and not voting in some races but voting in others? If you are voting, what can you say that might persuade the non-voter?
I would just add this thought, which is not directly related to the specific issue we are discussing: Most of this “Christian” vote would probably go to Donald Trump. He was foolish, though, in alienating this otherwise reliable part of his base by backing off of the pro-life cause. This dramatically decreased the enthusiasm and thus likely the turnout of people who would otherwise have voted for him.
Also foolish is Trump’s continued insistence that the 2020 election was rigged and that this one will be also if he doesn’t win. If this is true, why vote? The people who agree with him, by definition, would vote for him. But now 48% of the Christian non-voters believe him and therefore won’t vote at all.
Back to the question, keep in mind that, as we blogged about, 5% of those who say they won’t vote actually do.
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