If you are an American registered to vote, I have one plea for you this First Tuesday After the First Monday in November:
Stay home.
Yes, that’s right–stay home, and don’t vote. If you are uninformed or ambivalent about politics, the best thing you can do for yourself, your community and your country is to stay home.
You’re not disrespecting those who fought and died for your right to be free. You are exercising your freedom to refrain from voting. What’s more, you are behaving as a responsible citizen in our republic, dealing faithfully and kindly with your neighbors. If you don’t know what you’re doing, the best thing you can do is stay out of the process.
Motivated by guilt, fear and irrationality, millions of Americans will waste an hour of their lives today, casting votes that 1) are uninformed or (even worse) misinformed, and 2) don’t matter statistically.
Do something productive instead. Pray for your country and elected officials. Spend an extra hour chatting over coffee with your spouse. Read or play soccer with your kids. Count and roll the pennies in your sock drawer. Do something–almost anything is more productive than voting today.
UPDATE 05Nov10: In this essay Don Boudreaux explains why he does not vote.
think hard, think well 
Are you staying home? I assume you are more informed than some about politics — so are you voting or staying home? Just curious.
I’m staying home in order to be a good example for those who would feel guilty about staying home–and because I can’t bring myself to vote for either major candidate.
I was also not planning on voting. This is, in part, because I think I have so little real information about the candidates (it is hard to sort through media crap, etc.), but also because (based on what little information I have) I don’t think I could endorse either one.
If I were going to vote, I would support Gary Johnson in the hopes that he would achieve the 5% threshold to break the two-party oligopoly. But I think I can do more good by encouraging people to follow my example.
Who’s Josh voting for? 😉
Josh says, “God save the queen!”
Me too!