Famous Political Figures Who Don’t Actually Vote


If you thought that being in politics meant you had to drop a name in the ballot box (that’s pre-electronic-voting vernacular), you thought wrong. Here’s a list of political figures who actually don’t (or didn’t) vote. My personal favorite is number 5, in case you wondered.

1. Nate Silver, controversial pollster often accused of making Obama always come out on top, stopped voting when he moved to The New York Times. By the time the well-known blogger of FiveThirtyEight moved to the Times, he has accurately predicted the results of 4 out of 50 states’ 2008 election results. Despite his deduction skills, he hasn’t cast a vote in years, and won’t today. Although he did allegedly tell Charlie Rose that if he did, “it would be kind of a Gary Johnson versus Mitt Romney decision.”

2. You may recognize the name Jim Lehrer from the infamous “Big Bird” presidential debate. He moderated the first presidential debate this year, and has been dubbed “the most trusted moderator in America.” Lehrer has moderated debates 11 times before, but “stays so far out of the political swamps that he doesn’t even vote.”

3. General David Petraeus follows a long line of military generals who refuse to vote in order to keep their political affiliations under wraps. Though he is registered as a Republican, the General stopped voting when he earned his second star, noting that he did so “to avoid being pulled in one direction or another, to be in a sense used by one side or the other.”

4. ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper doesn’t vote in order to maintain unbiased news coverage, as much as possible. In September, Tapper told Chistiane Amanpour, “I don’t vote in races I cover. After I became a reporter, I found that, after I voted absentee ballot on a race I covered, it felt like I’d made an investment, and it was an uncomfortable feeling.”

5. While the above political figures don’t vote based on a sense of journalistic duty, Lew Rockwell doesn’t vote because he just thinks “The whole system is corrupt.” Alright. Rockwell adds that “It’s a pain in the neck” to vote, and it doesn’t matter anyway because “you’re vote doesn’t count.” Rockwell believes that being a non-voting citizen is just the best option.

Readers: Are you going to vote today, or do you relate with one of these five men who choose not to fill out a ballot?

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