The Philosophy Of Voting

A referendum is the highest expression of democratic debate: either you choose, or you let others choose for you.
— Gustavo Zagrebelsky


The democratic significance of a referendum

A referendum is one of the most concrete and powerful expressions of democracy because:
 • It gives a direct voice to the people: decisions are not delegated to politicians, but each citizen actively takes part in the decision-making process.
 • It fosters public debate: referendums stimulate open discussions where different viewpoints can emerge, be confronted, and debated.
 • It increases civic awareness: citizens are prompted to become informed, to reflect, and to choose — actively and responsibly exercising their role.
 • It holds political power in check: the people can approve or reject decisions that governments or parliaments cannot impose without popular consent.

• Abrogative referendum: used to repeal a law or part of it. Citizens vote to abolish it. This is the most commonly used form in Italy.
• Constitutional referendum: used to confirm or reject changes to the Constitution. It does not always require a quorum, and the result is binding.

In summary, the referendum is a tool of direct democracy that allows citizens to influence collective decisions firsthand. It is a form of political participation that strengthens popular sovereignty — the principle that power belongs to the people.

 

Not voting may seem like a form of protest or indifference, but in reality, it is a choice with precise consequences. In a democracy, voting is a powerful tool: it is the moment in which every person — regardless of social status, income, or education — has the same weight in shaping collective decisions.

When everyone loses interest in the common good, the tyrant becomes the only voice in the general silence.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

 

When you don’t take part in a vote — whether an election or a referendum — you are giving up your share of power. But that power doesn’t disappear: it goes to those who choose to use it. In other words, others will decide for you — and perhaps not in your best interest.

 The price paid by those uninterested in politics is to be governed by people worse than themselves.
— Plato, The Republic

Many think: “It won’t change anything,” or “No one represents me.” But this stance doesn’t stop the system: it allows it to function unopposed. Those in power will continue to rule and legislate — without your input. And so, the system doesn’t improve: it hardens, it closes, it becomes less yours.

 We are not born citizens: we become citizens by exercising the responsibility of choice every day.
— Hannah Arendt

 

In a democratic system, those who don’t participate end up submitting. It’s like excluding yourself from the possibility of change — like refusing to speak in an assembly and then complaining about the decisions made.
 This is the key point: not voting is a way to hand yourself over — silently — to those already in power. It’s accepting the rules of the game without ever playing. It is, ultimately, a form of voluntary servitude, adapting to a system one doesn’t help shape.

Indifference is the dead weight of history.
— Antonio Gramsci

Every vote, even a critical or opposing one, is an act of freedom. It says: “I’m here. I have an opinion. I want to matter.”
 Participation is not just a civic duty — it’s a gesture of dignity. It is how we avoid being passive spectators and become active subjects in our own history.

The right to vote is the only tool through which those without power can stop those with too much of it.
— John Rawls

 

In a world where we often feel small in the face of powerful systems, the referendum vote is one of the rare moments when the voice of the individual becomes truly collective, decisive, and determining.
 It is not just ticking a box. It is a radical gesture, an act of embodied freedom. It is the moment when the individual ceases to be a spectator of history and chooses to inhabit it, to walk through it with awareness.

A human being is their choices. To live authentically means assuming the responsibility to decide, even when the choice feels complex, uncomfortable, or uncertain.
To refuse to vote — or to abandon the act to indifference — is to give up on full existence: it is allowing others to define the world we live in.
Voting in a referendum is acting in the present with the awareness of shaping the future. It affirms that our freedom is not abstract, but is realized in the world we help build.

 

In a referendum, power is not granted from above — it is returned to us. At that moment, the State does not speak to the citizen — it is the citizen who speaks to the State.
This role reversal is rare, fragile, and precious. And it is in the simplicity of the choice — a “yes” or a “no” — that the depth of the democratic act is revealed: a limit is acknowledged, a direction is pointed out, a value is affirmed.

 

The word “politics,” in its original meaning, refers to the care of the polis — the city, the community. Voting in a referendum is not just an individual right: it is an act that binds us to others, forcing us to step out of the narcissistic isolation of the private sphere and into a space of shared responsibility.
It says: “Complaining is not enough. I will take a stand. I will take on part of the world’s responsibility.”

 

Ultimately, participating in a referendum means recognizing that we are part of a shared destiny. It is an exercise in humanity, awareness, and freedom.
 To pause, reflect, and choose consciously is a revolutionary gesture.
Not voting is an abdication of this possibility.

 

The fear of freedom is, deep down, the fear of the responsibility of deciding who one is.
 Freedom can be an unbearable burden; man may feel alone and insecure, and thus willing to renounce freedom just to belong.
— Erich Fromm

 

It is incredible how a people, once it loses its freedom, so easily forgets it ever had it.
 It is the people, then, who willingly place the yoke around their own necks — who, able to choose between serving and living free, choose subjugation.
— Étienne de La Boétie

 

Those who voluntarily abstain from voting renounce — knowingly or not — one of the primary forms of political action. In this sense, their silence is not just omission, but structural complicity with the prevailing order.
 To complain afterward, having not contributed to shaping the collective horizon, is an ethical contradiction: it is the paradox of someone who abdicates the right to choose but demands the right to judge.
 As Rousseau and Kant had already understood, a citizen is not only someone who enjoys civil rights, but someone who actively participates in defining the general will.
 To avoid this duty is to partly relinquish one's discursive legitimacy within the polis.
The indignation of the non-voter is, therefore, an empty echo: it lacks the weight of commitment, the trace of action.
And in the void left by that renunciation, a form of passive freedom is reflected — one that surrenders to complaint what should have been action.
The complaint of those who didn’t vote becomes a cry echoing in the very void they created — like a shipwrecked man who threw away his oars and now curses the waves.

 

Those who do not take part in elections hand their fate to others and lose the right to protest.
— George Bernard Shaw