Not showing up to vote is practicing political abstention
Abstention is a term that comes from abstentio , a late Latin word. This is what the act and result of abstaining is called: depriving or depriving oneself of something, not exercising a right .
In political science
The concept is usually used in the field of political science . In this context, a citizen chooses to abstain when he or she does not vote and, therefore, does not participate in an electoral process .
When abstention is massive or organized, it is considered to be a protest measure to express rejection of the candidates or proposals. Since it distorts the spirit of democracy , voting is often made mandatory, although this particularity does not prevent people from voting blankly (which, in any case, is different from abstention).
In parliamentary votes , abstention occurs when the legislator is in the room but decides not to vote . The representative, in this case, chooses not to comment on the issue under debate , without providing his support or expressing his opposition.
Potential consequences
In any case, the person who acts in this way must abide by the results of the vote , since abstention does not stop the process. The same thing happens with the aforementioned blank vote. Both serve as forms of protest , but if the authorities decide to ignore it, it can end up turning against those who carry it out.
It is important to highlight that neither a blank vote (generally expressed with an empty envelope) nor a null vote (the inclusion of a ballot or a document without official validity, the confusion of the boxes or other errors) should be considered forms of abstention.
For the right
In the field of law , abstention is the action that allows an official summoned to resolve a matter to withdraw from his knowledge , since he maintains some type of link with the intervening parties or with the object of the matter in question.
With a legal figure, abstention aims to ensure the objectivity of judicial and administrative processes. This minimizes the possibility of bias in the framework of public action.
Abstention can be related to recusal . This operation is carried out by challenging the judge 's actions, requesting that he be removed from the procedure so that impartiality is guaranteed.
Types of abstention
In the first classifications carried out regarding abstention understood as a practice of political science, different groups of voters were distinguished according to the reasons that had led them to decide not to express themselves through suffrage.
Over time, however, more than one author began to focus on two types of abstention: voluntary and involuntary . In turn, the first is subdivided into the active and the passive .
In law, it is to abstain from intervening in a procedure
active abstention
It is also known as political abstention and it is a position or positioning regarding a popular consultation. In short, it is about refusing to use the right to vote , instead of choosing one of the parties or candidates proposed in the elections, or voting affirmatively or negatively in a referendum.
It is called active precisely because it indicates an action to denounce or demonstrate against a specific situation that does not satisfy a part of the people. Its impact is greater in countries where voting is mandatory.
Technical abstention
Within passive abstention, we find the technique , which is also called forced . This is the case in which a voter cannot vote due to force majeure. Among the most common reasons are the following:
* you are traveling and cannot vote remotely;
* You cannot go to the polling station assigned to you;
* suffers from an illness or disability that prevents them from voting.