A Brief Case for Voting

I just cast my vote in Florida. The event was rather mundane up to the front door and then quiet as I walked in to hand my ID. No one harassed me; no police guards looked at me with threatening eyes, and the two or three folks around me acted and enjoyed their minute walk to the front of the line. I was even given a sticker. We are unique in this respect.

It may take a perspective from an outsider to appreciate the validity of voting in the United States. Despite concerns about election fraud–which has been with us for a long time–our system is still the best in the Western world. A quick glance at most voting booths worldwide will give you a sense of the vast chasm between order and chaos regarding this American social practice.

But I have addressed this too often before, and now I am here only to state what a profound joy it is to vote in this country; to be able to live a life where religion is practiced freely without hindrance and where the inferno of idiocy is not always at the door as it is in Chile, Venezuela, and other nations.

In early colonial times, voting was accompanied by eating and drinking. It was a festive occasion where those qualified to vote gathered together and spoke up or stood to signify their choices. Later on, that process was changed to secret ballots. Voting was a fairly restrictive right. It was reserved for those considered “freemen.” The freemen were those who were invested in the financial well-being of the colonies. Eventually, the only voting members were those with membership in a local church; what some would call a “religious test.”

In our day, voting is accessible to every citizen 18 and older. It is simple and free. But voting is often mocked by purists as if it is the new sacrament of the polis. The escapist philosophy deeply impacts the modern urge to avoid the things of the polis. Why vote when this earthly terrain is destined for destruction? This eschatological apocalypticism affects conspiracists and ordinary people alike.

But the case for voting is that it is merely an extension of the humanity of every being placed in a particular place (Acts 17:26) by God. The position that voting is too imposing is rather extreme, seeing that even advocates of two-kingdom theology perceive an ordinary secular (saecularia) function for voting as legitimate. Even the farthest from Puritan political theory find voting compelling, or at least an ordinary function of society. Politics may not be within the sphere of the holy for them, but it is still a function of ordinary pilgrims in a pagan and disposable world.

Thus, to turn voting into a waste or an inadequate principle for citizens violates basic principles of citizenship and the natural order. If we are to desire the good of the city (Jer. 29), then we must contribute to the ordering of that city. To refuse to vote is, by all accounts, an effortless way out of the complexity of life. By Puritan standards, it would be to despise the citizenship of redeemed humanity placed within a sphere and called to express that dominion most locally and tangibly.

But finally, it is also to despise the benefits of living in a free country. How many around the world would cherish a glimpse into an overall orderly structure (few exceptions aside) of this nation where voting is counted and where free citizens participate in seeing trajectories change both locally and nationally?

We must have a healthy realism about the fallen world we live in, but we should not assume that because of flawed candidates, we are called to give up voting and pursue something nobler. We have been called to express our authority over all things, and if we relinquish voting to a lesser and unnecessary sphere, we are abdicating our authority.