My grandma has relatively advanced Alzheimer’s disease and hearing loss. At 97, she’s still present enough to recognize her loved ones and enjoy our company, but it’s becoming nearly impossible to communicate with her.
In the 2020 general election, she obtained an absentee ballot, and her immediate family members, including me, helped her fill it out. (Her cognition was in decline four years ago, but it was not as degraded as it is now.) As I remember it, she held the pen while we did our best to explain each office and issue. If there was any confusion, we would tell her how we voted, and she would do the same.
Is it unethical to help her vote again this November? I foresee things playing out similarly to the last general election, in which she performs the mechanics of voting while we advise her. Though she’s not exactly an ideologue, my grandma has always been a voter. Before her illness, we were familiar enough with her political opinions to be reasonably confident about whom and what she would vote for. But I’m also conscious of the fact that the line between assistance and coercion is blurred in this situation. — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
Anyone may seek — and act on — advice about how to vote. That includes asking other people how they have voted and choosing to do likewise. If your grandmother is still able to check the boxes and sign the ballot as an expression of her choices, she’s just doing what anybody else does. Under those circumstances, she’s entitled to vote with your assistance. If she doesn’t understand what she’s doing, though, she isn’t really voting; voting is the expression of a political choice, and it would be wrong to record a vote that didn’t reflect her actual choices.
What to do when it’s simply unclear whether she’s expressing a view? Various states exclude citizens from voting when they are under guardianship or have been judged to be incompetent, but it won’t do to shut out people with mild cognitive impairments. After all, there’s a great distance between the ideal of civic responsibility (in which you reflect carefully on how an electoral outcome would affect the district, the state, the country, the world) and what you’re entitled to do when voting. Political scientists can marvel at what so-called low-information voters don’t know without thinking that such people should be disenfranchised.
When the situation is hazy, my inclination would be to err on the side of helping someone to vote, because voting is such a central form of civic participation. I’ll also note that in our polarized polity, many people aligned with either of the two major parties think that the choices of people aligned with the other one are not merely ill considered but make no rational sense. From their perspective, your grandmother, however impaired, would be far from an outlier. It remains the case that a broad franchise and regular elections are better for social peace than any available alternative. And for your grandmother, as for so many people around the world, the simple act of voting may have greater significance than whatever choices it conveys.
Readers Respond
The previous question was from a reader who was torn about how to vote in this year’s presidential election. She wrote: “I’m caught in a bind between two parties, the Democratic Party and the Green Party. I believe in the message and values of the Green Party candidate; however, they never seem to get elected, so many suggest voting for them is moot. … But with the upcoming presidential election, my peers suggest that voting for a third party ensures a Republican victory, akin to supporting the opposition. Increasingly, my beliefs and values are not reflected on either side of the two-party, one-coin system we have in our country. Is voting for a party that I know will lose more or less unconscionable than voting for a party I don’t fully believe in?”
In his response, the Ethicist noted: “There are many possible systems for democratic voting, and though some are better than others, all have shortcomings. Yet one choice you won’t be able to make this November is what kind of electoral system you’re voting under. And our current electoral system regularly forces people to choose between expressing their values and contributing to what they consider the lesser of two evils. If you believe that, of the two major-party candidates, one would be decidedly worse for the country than the other, expressing your party preference could contribute to an outcome you’d least want on your conscience.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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It seems to me that by voting we are expressing which candidate we think will be best for the country at this point in time. A vote for a symbolic candidate with zero real chance of winning is essentially giving the opposition candidate a vote. There are other ways to support new ideas represented by the Green candidate. There is one chance every election to make a difference and vote for the interests of the entire country. We must vote for the good of the whole. — Helen
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I agree that when a voter is struggling with their two options, they should consider the lesser of two evils. I wasted a vote on John Anderson for president in 1980 and actually felt worse about my “statement of conscience” than if I had voted for a legitimate potential winner. This is especially important in a swing state; an individual vote doesn’t mean as much in California, where I live. — Dennis
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There’s nothing wrong with third-party voting if that’s where the letter writer’s conscience takes her. In addition to voting for that third-party presidential candidate, I’d suggest the letter writer get involved with that party locally, to encourage people to vote for candidates down ballot and help push local change as well. — Laura
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The dilemma between picking the lesser of two evils and voting for a third party we actually prefer is driving a lot of us crazy right now! There’s another option: If you live in a swing state, you can vote for the lesser evil of the two major candidates, but make a friendly swap with a friend who lives in a solidly red or blue state who promises to vote for your third-party candidate. (Yes, vote-swapping is legal.) That way you can help keep the one you can’t stand out of office, and make a statement about the values you really want to vote for — and the need for more than two parties. If you live in a solidly red or blue state, make this pact with a friend in a purple state. Next, we still need to fix the electoral college; stop making politics a contest of PACs, dark money and fundraising and, as the Ethicist suggested, implement ranked-choice voting. — Vicki
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I think I agree with where the Ethicist ended up. I have been in the same quandary as the letter writer, but my final choice has always been guided by whether or not my vote might even possibly make a difference. Living now in an overwhelmingly blue state like Massachusetts, I know that the state would choose my second choice anyway so I’d feel free to vote Green. But if I were still living in my previous home in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, as the letter writer does, I would ignore my own desires and vote for the party I most side with of the two major parties. — David
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