One of the lessons we learn when we grow up is that life isn't always going to be an endless buffet of enticing options: sometimes, "less worse" is going to be the best you can do, and that's something you kind of need to get over.
With that in mind, standing on station and refusing to make tough decisions is immature and petulant.
And if you think you're "sending a message" or "making a difference" or "signalling discontent", I'd urge you to consider that nowhere in the world has anyone ever gone "Holy ****, 0.4% of the population declined their ballots! LET'S SPONTANEOUSLY CHANGE EVERYTHING!"
If you don't like your options, you can do something about it--between elections. Parties are democratic institutions. Join one. Or work outside the system and send letters to the editor or cabinet ministers: you'd be surprised how much policy is determined by these letters. Or join an outside pressure group. Whatever.
But if you've done none of that--if you've had no involvement whatsoever until this election, when you've woken up and realized that, like, none of these options are, like, quite what you had in mind--then that's entirely your own fault, and we can all do without your grandstanding.
Look, you can eat your ballot for all I care.
What bothers me is when people take declining their ballot and turn it into this grand and noble thing, far beyond the comprehension of us mere sheep. Declining a vote isn't fulfilling some proud civic duty; it's abdicating it. It's admitting that you've failed as a citizen, that your opinions have not made it into the marketplace of ideas, and that you've haven't persuaded anyone to take them seriously.
If that's the best you can do, so be it.
But let's do it without the sanctimony, hmm?
