Why Not Voting Doesn't Mean Giving Up the Right to Dissent

CNBC's John Carney has a smart take on why you shouldn't worry if you didn't vote. He's particularly good on the question of whether not voting somehow disqualifies later dissent:

Some democratic fanatics (democratic in the purely political, not the party, sense) will tell you that if you don't vote then you give up your right to dissent against subsequent government policies.

I've never understood this weird part of pseudo-democratic theory. It certainly isn't part of the Constitution of the United States, which preserves the rights of free speech, free press and petitioning the government even for non-voters. If anything, the opposite should be true: by voting you are tacitly agreeing to abide by the outcome of the vote. By not voting, you are doing no such thing.

Brian Caplan wrote about voter bias and irrationality for Reason back in 2007. In 2004, Brian Doherty explained why he was a proud non-voter.