Let's say hypothetically your two options to vote for have the same motives but take different stances on relatively unimportant issues. The issues that actually matter aren't discussed. The only issues that are discussed are the ones that stir up people's emotions. By voting you are just supporting this system and saying everything is okay. "Oh, look. 90% voter turnout. Everything is great."
I'd much rather not have my vote counted then vote for someone I despise. "Hmm, 10% voter turnout. Something must be wrong."
Encouraging people to vote for a person they don't like just because they don't dislike them quite as much as the other person sets a very bad precedent.
> I'd much rather not have my vote counted then vote for someone I despise. "Hmm, 10% voter turnout. Something must be wrong."
Empirically, low turnout as a signal that something is wrong which provokes some kind of change to correct it doesn't work very well.
> Encouraging people to vote for a person they don't like just because they don't dislike them quite as much as the other person sets a very bad precedent.
Encouraging people to not vote because eventually that will signal that something is wrong and produce positive change is a lot worse.
Vote-for-one voting is still a ranked-preference method, its just one with only two ranks, and a restriction that only one candidate can be put in the first rank. It provides some (though often less than you'd like) input into social decisionmaking.
Abstention, in any voting system, is simply expressing absolute indifference between the available options -- it doesn't mean that you dislike them all, you could just like them all equally. It provides no useful signal into social decisionmaking. If you are actually indifferent, that's fine, but signaling indifference when what you really want to say is that you are not indifferent, but also not happy with your choices, is probably not what you want.
If you don't like the choices you get at general elections, there are ways to signal that that are far more effective than not voting. (The weakest and most basic of which is voting in primary elections or whatever the equivalent is.)
Encouraging people to vote for a person they don't like just because they don't dislike them quite as much as the other person sets a very bad precedent.
The alternative is the worse candidate get half your vote. If you really are indifferent to which ever candidate wins (i.e. they are both equally bad) then don’t vote. If you do think one is worse than the other then you need to vote to express this opinion.
No it really isn't. This is some very basic math that you are getting completely wrong for the sake of an argument. I'm not increasing either candidates popularity by not voting. If anything, I'm implicitly decreasing both of their popularities.
I'd much rather not have my vote counted then vote for someone I despise. "Hmm, 10% voter turnout. Something must be wrong."
Encouraging people to vote for a person they don't like just because they don't dislike them quite as much as the other person sets a very bad precedent.