[BadBadJellyBean]

You summed up my point. If someone doesn't vote if they can they support what ever the majority of the votes wanted. They were fine with it. So in they end they wanted what the majority wanted because that is the result. Everything else is fudging the numbers to feel better.

You could also just say they didn't exist if it makes you feel better. But calculating the percentage from the eligible voters gets you no where. They didn't vote. It just makes the number smaller. Whatever. It doesn't change anything. It's not first to 50% of eligible votes. It's the majority of voters.

But I am angry at everyone who doesn't vote if they can. Especially if they complain that this isn't what they wanted.

[Aachen]

If someone asks me about macroeconomic decisions and I don't feel like I can make a choice that sufficiently oversees the consequences and so I vote blank, I don't necessarily want to be thought of as having supported whatever ended up happening though

But I can see what you mean here. Just that I'd phrase it as "you will just have to live with the outcome" and not "you voted for this outcome" or "52% of the population wanted this" as it was phrased above. That is what I'd call fudging numbers to sound better than they were :p

[BadBadJellyBean]

Maybe I have to clarify this a bit. When I say "they wanted it" I mean that functionally. The ultimate outcome of not voting if you can is that you accept the decisions of others without giving your own input. Therefore you functionally condone the decision of others because you didn't put your voice against that.

There might be a situation where you have decide between two equally bad things. In that case not voting would be okay. But that's rarely the case.

Sometimes it's okay to just vote against the worse of the choices. That's still better than doing nothing. You WILL get one of the choices (unless there is a revolution or something). It's not like you will get none of these if you don't vote. Therefore apathy and not voting is a bad thing.

Example Brexit: You could vote remain or leave. There was no third option. Everyone who didn't vote because none of the options were what they wanted, still got leave. It didn't matter if their stance was "remain but maybe work on the terms" or anything else. The result was "leave". Functionally they accepted that. Functionally they sad "leave" because the majority of the voters said "leave". It didn't matter what they wanted. Only what they got. Just because they didn't vote.

Same goes for US elections. "I don't want either of them" translates to you get what the others want if you don't vote. Always. This can happen when you vote as well but then you at least made your voice heard. Your vote was recorded. There were more people with another opinion. That's democracy. Anything else is apathy and in my eyes you lost all right to complain.

Disclaimer: I am assuming a working voting system and the ability to vote.