abstention

Abstention is a term that comes from abstained, a word from late Latin. This is how the act and result of abstaining: deprive oneself or deprive oneself of something, not exercise a right.

In political science

The concept is often used in the field of Sciences politics. In this context, a citizen chooses to abstain when does not attend to vote and, therefore, does not participate in an election process.

Not showing up to vote is practicing political abstention

When abstention is massive or organized, it is considered to be a protest measure to express rejection of candidates or proposals. Since it distorts the spirit of the democracy, many times the mandatory nature of the vote is established, although this particularity does not prevent people from vote blank (Which is different from abstention anyway).

On parliamentary votes, abstention occurs when the legislator is on the premises but decides No vote. The representative, in this case, chooses not to pronounce on the matter submitted to debate, without offering their support or expressing their opposition.

Potential consequences

In any case, the person who acts in this way must abide by the results of the vote, since abstention does not succeed in stopping the process. The same happens with the aforementioned blank vote. Both serve as forms of protestBut if the authorities decide to ignore it, it may end up turning against those who carry it out.

It is important to note that neither the blank vote (generally expressed with the empty envelope) nor the null (the inclusion of a ballot or a document without official validity, the confusion of the boxes or other errors) should be considered forms of abstention.

For the right

In the field of right, abstention is the action that allows an official summoned to resolve a matter depart from your knowledge, since it maintains some type of link with the intervening parties or with the object of the matter in question.

With a legal status, abstention aims to ensure the objectivity of judicial and administrative processes. This minimizes the possibility of bias in the frame of public action.

Abstention can be related to challenge. This operation is performed with the challenge of the action of the judge, requesting that he be removed from the procedure so that impartiality is guaranteed.

Types of abstention

In the first classifications that were carried out on abstention understood as a practice of political science, different groups of voters were distinguished according to the reasons that had led them to decide not to express themselves through suffrage.

Over time, however, more than one author began to focus on two types of abstention: voluntary and the involuntary. In turn, the first is subdivided into the active and the passive.

In law, it is to refrain from intervening in a procedure

Active abstention

It is also known by the name of political abstention and it is a position or a positioning for a popular consultation. In short, it is about giving up the right to vote, instead of choosing one of the parties or candidates proposed in the elections, or voting affirmatively or negatively in a referendum.

Is named active precisely because it indicates an action to denounce or demonstrate against a certain situation that does not satisfy a part of the people. Its impact is greater in countries where voting is mandatory.

Technical abstention

Within passive abstention, we find the technique, which is also called forced. This is the case in which a voter cannot vote due to force majeure. Among the most common reasons are the following:

* you are traveling and cannot vote remotely;

* You cannot go to the polling place that has been assigned to you;

* You have an illness or disability that prevents you from voting.