On Negative Voting

I have little sympathy for the so-called negative voters in our last Presidential election. I set forth an argument for why I thought that voting "against someone" by voting for their opponent was wrong in this Althouse comment thread.* I'm going to reiterate it here "for the record."

• Voting for a candidate because you are against his or her opponent is unethical.
• A vote for candidate A because you dislike candidate B is electorally indisinguishable from an enthusiastic support vote for candidate A. They count the same at the ballot box.
• A vote for candidate A sends a message of support to candidate A. If you didn't support A, don't send them a confusing message. You cannot easily walk back a protest vote. 

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*This argument began in the context of whether running so-called "fake" candidates in Wisconsin's recall elections was proper. I wrote:

Ethics is doing the right thing when nobody is looking. Many are looking at these elections, so running a "fake" candidate is not unethical. Is running a "fake" candidate against some rule? I asked garage mahal that the other day.....
....crickets. link

Later in an oblique comment to Carol Herman I wrote:

There are otherwise reasonable people here who strongly argue for things like voting "for" a candidate and then stating that what they really meant was to vote "against" another. Call me old fashioned but I never learned that nuanced tactic in civics. I learned that we should seek out and always vote for something we believed in. Otherwise it's either just passive aggression or cowardice, which I, having long suffered to overcome in myself, cannot respect. Link

This prompted a response from Chip S.

@chickenlittle:

Someone is asked why he chose chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, when offered a choice between the two. Here are some possible answers:

1. I prefer chocolate to vanilla.
2. I dislike vanilla.
3. I like chocolate best of all.

All three describe the exact same choice. #1 is tautological. #2 allows for the possibility that the person prefers, say, strawberry to chocolate. #3 implies that the person will always choose chocolate.

Why is reason 3 morally superior to reason 2?  link

Not being a naturally good test taker, I pondered Chip's choices before responding:

An election for a candidate differs from referenda such a yes/no ballot measure. A no vote on a referendum does not enable that measure to go forward. A no voter can easily divorce his or herself from the position even if he or she is outvoted.
A “no vote” in a choice between two candidates actually casts a nod for the lesser of the two evils. On paper, such a negative voter is indistinguishable from an enthusiastic supporter's vote.

Such a negative voter cannot easily divorce his or herself from his or her negative choice because his or her vote was electorally indistinguishable from a supporters.

A negative voter knowingly obfuscates the decision at hand, and I, for one, believe this civilly unethical. link

Commenter Big Mike scoffed at this:

A negative voter knowingly obfuscates the decision at hand 

No he doesn't. He takes the only option open to him.

...and I, for one, believe this civilly unethical. 

Ridiculous.  link

Chip S. returned to answer:

Such a negative voter cannot easily divorce his or herself from his or her negative choice because his or her vote was electorally indistinguishable from a supporters.

Agreed. But I don't follow what you wrote next:

A negative voter knowingly obfuscates the decision at hand,

How can someone "knowingly obfuscate" a choice that is "electorally indistinguishable" from that of someone with different preferences but who cast the same vote? The "fault," if it were a fault, is in the fact that the voter is forced to choose between a limited set of options.

Finally, I simply don't understand how you get from any of that to this:

I, for one, believe this civilly unethical.

If you're upset about the "obfuscation," why wouldn't you welcome a clarification along the lines of "I voted against B more than I voted for A? link

I replied:

@Chip S asked: How can someone "knowingly obfuscate" a choice that is "electorally indistinguishable" from that of someone with different preferences but who cast the same vote?

Because the outcome of the vote is interpreted by the winner. The winner says: look how many supporters I have instead of hmm, I wonder how many supports I have for my intentions and how many just didn’t like my opponent. That is the deliberate obfuscation introduced by the negative voter.

The "fault," if it were a fault, is in the fact that the voter is forced to choose between a limited set of options

Forced?

Finally, I simply don't understand how you get from any of that to this: "I, for one, believe this civilly unethical."

Would civically unethical be better? Elsewhere I noted that ethics involves doing the right thing when no one is looking. A voting booth is private. According to my definition, a negative voter is not doing the right thing because they introduce the uncertainty factor into the outcome. This what I mean by obfuscation. There's also the continual need to for a negative voter to carefully distance him or herself from ongoing issues which they never intended to vote for by voting against their opponent. After a while, it becomes convoluted logic until another electoral event comes along to erase the chalkboard. link