Saint Michael’s College visiting speaker makes case for voting as a duty

Voting may not be a legal requirement in the U.S., but it’s certainly a moral obligation for citizens – at least that’s what visiting speaker and Political Science Professor Julia Maskivker says. 

Maskivker, a professor at Rollins College in Florida, spoke to a full room of Saint Michael’s students, faculty, staff, and other community members recently as part of a voter awareness series on campus. The series has approached the topics of voting and citizenship from a number of different perspectives throughout the fall semester in the lead-up to the U.S. Presidential election in November.  

Rollins College Political Science Professor Julia Maskivker speaks to a crowd at Saint Michael’s College on Oct. 14, 2024, about the duty to vote. (Photo by Abbey Gyurko ’27)

Maskivker, who described herself as a Latin American immigrant from Argentina, said she had been surprised upon moving to the U.S. that voting is not a requirement. In Argentina, like in many Latin American countries, voting is compulsory, she said.  

“You have to show up at the polls absent some valid justification, such as you were sick or too far away from the polls,” Maskivker said. “When I came to this country to start my graduate studies, I realized that elections here are more complicated. Political parties have to worry about convincing people to vote – not just telling them who to vote for.”  

This new understanding inspired Maskivker to examine the concept of voting further, leading to many published articles and a book titled, “The Duty to Vote.” Her book formed the basis for her talk at Saint Michael’s College on Oct. 14.  

Maskivker incorporated political theory and philosophy into her talk to make the case that voting is a moral duty and that being an informed voter matters. 

“I argue that we have duties of Samaritan justice to relieve society of the harms, suffering and pains caused to citizens by bad governance – by rulers that govern unjustly, cruelly, non-responsibly, or inefficiently,” Maskivker said. “We have duties to relieve our fellow citizens of the suffering that those actions cause.”  

Rollins College Political Science Professor Julia Maskivker speaks to a crowd at Saint Michael’s College on Oct. 14, 2024, about the duty to vote. (Photo by Abbey Gyurko ’27)

People who don’t vote cause just as much harm as uninformed or apathetic voters, Maskivker said, because they are failing to act in a way that will prevent harm to others. She pointed out that many voters feel like their votes don’t make a difference because their single vote gets lost in a “proverbial ocean of votes.” However, she countered that collective action – or joining forces with others toward a common good – was still a way individuals’ votes could have an impact.  

“Not everything we do in life is individually rational,” Maskivker said. “Some things are collectively rational.” 

She listed several examples, adding, “We recycle, and we know that our plastic bottle down in the blue bin will not be the one responsible for solving the climate crisis. We donate to charity, and we know that our single donation will not end global poverty. We volunteer our time to find a cure to cancer, and we know it’s not our five minutes or half an hour doing this that will determine whether cancer is curable or not. People do these things all the time, but they know that many others doing the same thing has an impact.” 

While the institutional design of the U.S. electoral system (including the two-party system and the Electoral College) presents challenges to some of Maskivker’s points, she said the underlying moral obligation to vote remains constant for all who live in democracies.  

“The problem is structural – it’s in the rules,” Maskivker said of the U.S. electoral system. “It’s not in democracy.”