In 107 Days, Kamala Harris’s account of her presidential campaign, Harris reflects on citizens who had refused to support her due to her position on the genocide in Gaza. She writes, “the threat to withhold their vote got to me. It felt reckless. Either Trump or I would be elected. The issue was not binary, but the outcome of this election certainly was,” (Harris 57).

This use of ‘reckless’ to describe nonvoting invokes images of endangerment; it is language ordinarily used to mark someone as a collective threat to well-being. The language is moralizing, containing built-in assumptions about one’s responsibility and judgment. When Harris characterizes nonvoting as reckless, she invokes a specific moral vocabulary that positions it as a moral failure. Unfortunately, this action is not at all unique to Harris.

When American citizens are reluctant to participate in elections, it is not uncommon for patronizing descriptors – ‘reckless,’ ‘careless’ – to be thrust at them. Harris’s case is only one example of moralizing language being weaponized to dismiss the underlying issues behind an intentional political stance. We see this move, time and time again, executed by political figures across the political spectrum. It is divisive and unfairly diminishes the legitimacy of a political stance by undermining its intentionality. In the case of nonvoting, it narrows the ‘logical’ ways in which the act may be understood, and this narrowing has consequences: it obscures the structural conditions that produce political disillusionment. This is not to say that voting is unimportant. Instead, it is to say that if we analyze nonvoting as a meaningful expression rather than a ‘reckless’ defect, we can better understand and support non-voters rather than ostracize them through moralizing language. 

To understand more nuanced reasoning behind nonvoting, one should analyze a line of thought frequently visited by Democrats: the ‘lesser evils’ argument. The logic goes as follows: a voter may not necessarily prefer either candidate, but is morally obligated to vote for the option that inflicts the least harm. Voting then becomes less about genuine political alignment and devolves into damage control. 

Given the long history of framing Black political participation as a moral duty, these expectations carry a distinct resonance. For many Black Americans, the lesser-evil script feels less like choice and more like coercion, pressure that feels morally incorrect to inflict upon voters, when feeling as if, put in the words of a Black disengaged voter, “you’re screwed if you do [vote] and screwed if you do not. It doesn't matter,” (Brown et al. 33). That feeling is not isolated—in interviews with Black nonvoters across the country, one theme repeated itself: they do not believe that election outcomes, irrespective of the result, meaningfully change their lives, (Brown et al. 33). In this light, refusing to vote becomes a matter of moral clarity. The clarity comes from understanding that electoral participation, under these corrupt conditions, appears as an endorsement of a system that is continuously letting down Black communities. If one views supporting an unjust system as complicity, then the only ethical alternative may be to abandon one’s endorsement of any candidate altogether. 

This ethical refusal carries weight because it challenges a political culture that has long depended on Black hope to mask its own failures. As Eddie S. Glaude Jr. points out in Democracy in Black, Black participation is often read as proof of national healing, leaving hope to become none other than a national PR strategy. Then, every election cycle, Black voters are again expected to ‘save’ the country. They are told to step up, deny their moral convictions, and demonstrate their ‘hope’ through voting, so that the country remains stable. However, what is often overlooked is that this constant expectation imposes a continuous emotional burden. Thus, it is entirely plausible to view Black nonvoting as an affective boycott, a refusal to provide the emotional proof an entire nation relies on. The act disrupts the expectation that Black people must still keep showing hope, just for America to feel good about itself. By refraining from voting, Black nonvoters interrupt the false narrative that democracy is doing better simply because they still believe in it.

Black nonvoting, by rejecting the logic of the lesser evil, shows yearning for political possibilities the existing order cannot accommodate. It calls attention to the uncomfortable truth that a democracy can function procedurally while failing its people substantively. This tension between lived reality and form is revealed by abstention. Rather than dismissing nonvoting as ‘reckless’ or ‘careless’, we might take it as an opportunity to rethink the measures of political health. Instead of asking how to get people back to the polls at any cost, we should ask what conditions would make participation feel meaningful, moral, and worthwhile. Black nonvoting points us toward that question and the possibility that a stronger democracy begins not by demanding more from the people it has failed, but by finally responding to what their refusal makes visible. 

If our public language continues to dismiss nonvoting as a moral failure, we lose the chance to see it for its political critique. The absolute recklessness lies not in the refusal to vote, but in dismissing that refusal instead of listening to what it signals.

Bibliography

Broun, Rachel , et al. Not (Just) Barriers: How Poor and Working-Class Black People See Politics. 5 Mar. 2024, www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/Broun%2C%20Laurison%20et%20al%20-%20Not%20%28Just%29%20Barriers.pdf. Accessed 21 Nov. 2025.

“Democracy in Black PDF.” BooKey, BooKey, 12 Jan. 2016, cdn.bookey.app/files/pdf/book/en/democracy-in-black.pdf. Accessed 21 Nov. 2025.

Harris, Kamala. 107 Days. Simon & Schuster, 23 Sept. 2025.