Of course it is your duty. You have a moral obligation to excercise that duty. Only GOP (Greedy Ole Pols) would deny that it is not your duty. Vote for whoever you like, but vote. Thousands of brave young men and women have died to confer that honor, and duty, on you. Don't let the greed heads keep you away from the polls.

It was a right until folks died to protect that right. Now it is a duty. Stand up and be counted.

The best part about Jeff is that, just when you thought he'd written his dumbest column yet, he manages to write something dumber.  This one desrves some sort of prize. Yes, of course voting is a civic duty.   So is standing for jury duty.  Can't wait for Jeff's columns disparaging that...

Since 2000...Al Franken won his Senate seat by 312 votes (MN, 2008). Bob McDonnell won his race for Attorney General by 323 votes (VA, 2005). Christine Gregoire beat Dino Rossi for governor by 133 votes (WA, 2004). George Bush was certified as having 537 more votes than Al Gore (FL, 2000). All of those were races where more than a million votes were cast.

And way back in 1839, Marcus Morton won the governorship of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by 2 votes, a 0.00195% margin.

Your vote almost certainly doesn't matter, except for those times when it does.

Words commonly have more than a single meaning, and Jacoby loves to distort the meaning to make it compatible with his latest whim. This one is particularly pathetic.

You have both a right and a duty to vote. The right is awarded to you by the constitution. There is no constitution requirement that individual citizens vote, so there's no duty in the legal sense.

However... If you're happy with the current government, or if you want change in the government, or if you're afraid of how some candidates or proposals would effect the government, then you have a duty (or obligation) to vote. Your duty is to yourself, and also to voters who think like you.

It's true that 1 vote isn't likely to change the outcome, but 1 + 1 +1 equals 3. Those 1 votes add up. What if 200,000 Bostonians decided not to vote because their 1 vote means nothing. (That's not an impossible figure.) That would mean that only 150,000 would decide the fate of the city, and most of those might disagree with the views of the majority who did not vote.

That brings up the insidious aspect of Jacoby's suggestion. True believers (that is, those with radical ideas) are more likely to show up at the polls. If many of the moderates stay home, the radicals may be able to take control. It's happened before.

Beware of Jacoby. He's always angling for his minority and relatively radical views.

I see, trying a 'reasoned' approach to voter supression. Hey, why don't you just write a column supporting a re-intitution of the poll tax and a 'granfather' clause? Perhaps some sort of intelligence testing? You could write a column in support of skewing the test scores to automatically give conservatives some bonus points. I'm sure the Roberts court won't have any problems with it.

This is a sad attempt to convince Democrats not to vote, Mr. Jacoby.

Lets see, motivated Obama haters will vote so I must write a column telling the less motivated but probably Democratic that they should feel fine if they stay home. Must you always ne the cynic Jeff?

Somewhere in a legitimate newspaper there must be  a worse column but I can't imagine what it would contain.  Everyone knows that Jacoby is anti-Democratic, but now he stands revealed as anti-democratic as well.  I used to think that the Globe was a waystation for Jacoby on his journey to Fox "News."  But no more.  Fox would never let him express this drivel especially to THEIR viewers.  They are counting on the brainwashed to get out there and do the right thing.  The FAR right thing.

Jacoby is an embarassment.

By all means, Jacoby, set the example you wish others to follow and don't vote. The rest of us, those who actually cherish both the right AND the duty, will cast our ballots.

This is simply a disgrace. Are there any editors at The Globe? What's next, it's not your "duty" to report a crime, and it is your "right" to ignore it? Of course he's technically correct regarding your "duty" to vote, but Jeff Jacoby's credibility as an Op-Ed contributor moves to zero.

Dumb and Wrong.  

"For one thing, your vote almost certainly won’t matter."  Just becase an election is won by more than 1 vote does not mean that a single vote doesn't matter.  I wonder how much he is getting paid to spew this BS.

Wow.  Just wow.  Voting is, in fact, NOT a right enshrined in the constitution.  It is implied in some of the amendments, but never explicitly granted.  And while voting is not a LEGAL obligation, it most certainly IS a MORAL obligation, because without robust elections, representative democracy fails.  Of course, if you don't believe in democracy, by all means don't vote.  Instead spend the time writing contemptible op ed columns like this one for the Boston Globe.

My vote will cancel out your vote Jeff and that's all the incentive I need to be out there. 

Such a twisted mentality.  Comparing an individual's vote with an election decided by one vote is a distorted logic that a 4th grader could destroy in a debate.  This is such a blatent attempt by the author to encourage voters to stay home in this next election in this overly Democratic state.  Have you no shame!

A civic duty is not a legal obligation and hence different from being forced to do something by a law.  It is a societal obligation if you believe in a country with fair laws and truly representative leaders.  Again Mr. Jacoby mucks things up.  Voting determines what rules all citizens live by.  It also puts in place the government executives and legislators.  It gives power to the winners to select those who will interpret the rules.  If you choose not to participate you have not fulfilled a social contract.  Once you or your family has decided that a culture or civilization has advantages for you, each one of us is the keeper of that contract.  Since we vote for our leaders and representatives we are selecting people who will protect our ability to move reasonably freely without harm and that we have a reasonable chance to live a livable life.  Without an informed vote we will slide into chaos or be governed by a chosen few, usually those with a narrow agenda and plenty of money.  So the exercise of voting is a civic duty that has unforseen consequences when it is not utilized.  So not voting punishes by its aftermath.  In matters of war and peace, our judges, how tax money is spent, and aiding those who are down on their luck(could be you or your family) are all determined by walking into a voting booth.  It is the glue that keeps us together as a single entity.  Without it we give up our fate to those who have little idea of nationhood.  So do not let the Jeff Jacoby's of the world let you feel you have no skin in the game.  Just as there are other obligations in life like good manners or becoming educated voting belongs to this higher etiquette.  You can choose to be a boor but it weakens the glue that holds the US together.  You will reap what you sow.  Jeff's is a royalist view of this great country of ours.  Between the lines he is saying the Heritage Foundation, its offshoots, and supporters know how to take care of you best so don't lose any sleep if you want to sit it out.

I know Jeff it's not your duty.  Just like it's not your duty to serve in the military either.  In fact your the kind of guy that makes any conservative cringe.  You don't have to do anything.  You built it.  You did your duty by existing.  You are the perfect example of America's finest libertarian, faux conservative.  What a guy. 

Democracy depends on the participationof the people. Otherwise it is not democracy. Wouldn't it be nice if the guy with whom I don't agree just stayed at home. Then I could rule the world. COme to think about it maybe that is why there is so much resistance by some to voters' rights legislation.

Democracy also requires that people become informed. Some people have more time and interest but that is true of parenting, professional practice, and just about everything else. I agree, if you know nothing about the race, you shouldn't feel obliged to vote...but you should feel obliged to lear where candidates stand on issues that effect you.

Wow, Jeff. Is this your own suppress-the-vote effort?

98%=/- voting participation rates were the norm in the old Soviet Union. Those lovable Leftists were almost as passionate as some of the other commenters today. Democracy has been doing pretty well with the people deciding for themselves whether to vote or not. That Jacoby is openminded enough to give people that freedom is something to value not demean....even when it does conflict with deeply held beliefs that some of us have.

Worst column ever, and when speaking of Mr Jacoby, that's saying something. It's hard to imagine that he could do any worse than this, but I suspect that he'll keep trying.

To the editors, can we have a "conservative" commentator who is articulate and intelligent? I appreciate balance in the commentary, but this gentleman is an embarrassment.

That the Globe continues to let this guy write is a testament to freedom of the press.  Those with the bucks...get the freedom to say whatever they want.  The Globe has the bucks...and puts this guy's gobbledygook into print on a regular basis.  There is NO such thing as the liberal media.  Not when this gets passed off as journalism

This may be clever, provocative cocktail party repartee, but it is a profoundly destructive and ineffective position to hold when one isn't trying to be the most clever little boy in the room. We've all heard this opinion before, except those of us in sendsory deprivation tanks, as you so delightfully point out. This argument is a dime a dozen, Mr Jacoby, and your silly arrogance is tiresome.  The ideas must have been few and far between this round, for you to land here. Not in favor of something. Not against something. Just an argument for passively sitting back and letting the other guy do the job. The job of participaing in our precious democracy. You're not a soldier or a senator or any other kind of participant in our democracy. Your only duty is to drag your butt out of your computer chair from time to time and vote. And so you must resist.

There's nothing here, Mr Jacoby. It's not clear what you were going for. It's not clever. It's not convincing. It's not liberating.  It is a rather annoying bit of navel gazing, resisting the mildest and yet most important call to your civic duty. 

Mostly, this reminds me of my children, who would resist my requirement that they take out the trash from time to time.  "I don't want to. I don't have to. You're not the boss of me," they would whine. Fortunately they learned to be the boss of themselves, and to do what is required of them in life. Apparently you didn't. More's the pity. Go to your room, Mr. Jacoby, until you can behave like a member of this democracy.

Mr. Jacoby intones:  "...your vote almost certainly won’t matter."

Thanks for that wise advice.  This reminds me of the time decades ago when I was still in high school; my parents decided to skip voting in a municipal election, and a sleazy guy managed to get elected to our city's corporation commission by a margin of two (2) votes.  He was later was indicted for corruption and ultimately went to prison.  For me, this was an object lesson in democracy that I have never forgotten:  EVERY VOTE COUNTS.