Why Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils

I know. It’s the wrong season for thinking about politics. Nonetheless, I’m thinking about it, and sometimes you have to serve up your ideas while they’re still warm.

A perennial (or perhaps biennial or quadrennial) question in the American political experience is “Should people of conscience vote for the lesser of two evils?” The question is of interest to all who care about right and wrong but carries special interest for Christians since their aim is to do all things in obedience to Christ.

My thesis is simple. In a vote between two evils, Christians ought to back the lesser of the two.

For the purposes of this essay, I’m assuming readers already believe Christians ought to vote. My aim is to present three arguments for voting for the candidate who is least evil, whether the office is President of the United States, U.S. Senator or Village Clerk.

1. Such a vote is the lesser of two evils.

The first argument for voting for the lesser of evils is in the proposition itself: less evil. Who can be against that? Here’s the argument one statement at a time:

  • It’s good to do what results in less evil.
  • Voting for less-evil candidates results in less evil.
  • Therefore, it’s a good thing to vote for less-evil candidates.

Let’s evaluate the argument one premise at a time.

The first premise should be an easy sell. All good people want to see less evil in themselves and in the world around them. Some may object that there really are no good people—and they’ve got a point. No one is “good” in the sense of Mark 10:18 (ESV: “No one is good except God”) or Romans 3:12 (“no one does good”). But many are good in the sense of Romans 15:14 (“you yourselves are full of goodness”), and even more are good in the sense of Proverbs 13:22 (“a good man leaves an inheritance”) and 14:14 (“a good man will be filled …”). All decent people are in favor of doing what results in less evil.

The second premise is the controversial one. What sort of voting behavior really results in less evil, especially in the long term? Three attitudes toward that question predominate. Some voters maintain that, over time, more good (less evil) comes from supporting only those candidates who are a near-perfect match to the ideal. In this view, though voting exclusively for superb candidates may have worse results in the short run, we would eventually see excellent results if everyone voted this way.

Another attitude is that there is no voting behavior that results in less evil. The world is doomed to ever increasing wickedness and there is nothing any of us can do about it. Evil will increasingly dominate until Christ establishes His geopolitical kingdom on earth by force.

Parts of that attitude resonate with me. In the end, evil will come to dominate the globe as never before, and that situation will be reversed only when Christ conquers. However, the Scriptures that reveal this end game have been in the Bible for more than two thousand years (much longer, if you include Daniel!). During that interval, human history has witnessed many periods of increased justice (and diminished evil) in various regions—sometimes for centuries.

Christians understand that human nature will remain sinful regardless, and that the redemption of the planet comes only through the reign of Jesus Christ. But it doesn’t follow that we are unable to reduce the evil in the world in one place or another for a few decades or longer.

So what kind of voting results in less evil in our land? The third attitude toward that question is that a voting strategy that results in less evil in the short run often results in less in the long run as well. Good ideas are amenable to more good ideas, and even a leader with few good principles is more open to improvement than a leader with zero good principles.

An objection is that the leader with only a few good principles must have a whole bunch of bad ones. And just as good ideas tend to lead to more good ideas, bad ideas tend to lead to more bad ideas. But this argument actually supports the third attitude: if both good and bad thinking tend to lead to more of the same, the leader who starts out with fewer erroneous beliefs is the best choice.

If less evil is better than more, and voting for the lesser of evils results in less evil, it follows that this is a wise way to vote.

2. The alternatives are imaginary.

At this point, we need to clarify what we mean by “evil” when we say “lesser of two evils.” In my experience, debaters on this point tend to equivocate, defining “evil candidate” sometimes as “garden variety sinner” and other times as “people like Stalin.” The “never vote for a lesser of evils” crowd uses a Stalinesque idea of “evil candidate” to argue against voting for a garden variety sinner they don’t like. The equivocation comes when they turn around and defend voting for the candidate they do like (also a garden variety sinner) because he is no Stalin.

Not exactly a strong argument.

So what do we mean by “evil” when we say “lesser of two evils”? As long as we’re internally consistent (that is, if we don’t equivocate), it doesn’t really matter. If we say an “evil candidate” is any candidate who is not Jesus Christ, then we really have no choice but to vote for “the lesser of evils.” On the other hand, if we say that an “evil candidate” is one who belongs in a whole different class from your average sinner—the class that includes Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein—it’s pretty unlikely that we’ll ever be choosing between two candidates who are in that class.

Either way, we’re stuck with voting for someone who is less imperfect than someone else.

“But there’s another category!” some insist. Any Christian is not an evil candidate. The thinking here is that if there are two top candidates who are unbelievers and one unelectable, obscure candidate who is a true disciple of Jesus Christ, we can vote for the third and avoid promoting the lesser of evils.

What this counterargument has going for it is that there is indeed a fundamental difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate. You’ll get no denial of that from me. It would also be hard to overstate the potential of that fundamental difference to change how a person weighs his options and governs.

However, the difference in how the believing leader weighs his choices and governs is a potential difference, not necessarily an actual one. Though the believer is fundamentally devoted to Christ, he or she does not necessarily respond to every choice with a conscious and passionate desire to know what would please our Lord. We should make every choice that way, but we all know we don’t. So what’s the real governing difference between an unbelieving candidate and a believing one? Because of the blessing of common grace—often in the form of Christian principles that influence even the thinking of some atheists—a Christian who is immature or poorly informed may govern less Christianly than an unbeliever who has been instilled with deeply Christian habits of thought and true breadth of knowledge.

Of course, having “deeply Christian habits of thought” will not save the non-Christian. Only faith in Christ, and the resulting imputed righteousness, can do that. But these habits will make him a wiser ruler than anyone who lacks them.

If you get out much, you’ll meet non-Christians who, despite their unregenerate condition, think and act much like Christians should. I don’t get out much, and even I’ve met a few. What I’ve encountered more often are professing Christians who do not evidence particularly Christian ways of evaluating the kinds of the moral and ethical questions statesmen face.

To summarize, then, while all believers are “righteous” in a sense that all unbelievers are not, this spiritual and positional difference does not necessarily correlate with governing in a truly Christian way. So when it comes to voting, we can’t class all non-believers as “evil” and all believers as “good” in any sense that relates meaningfully to ability to govern wisely and justly. The real choice we face is one of choosing among candidates who are evil in varying degrees and in different ways.

3. You can still vote your conscience.

I often see this issue framed as though there are two, and only two, choices: voting for a candidate who can win or voting your conscience. It’s an interesting disjunction. Let’s scrutinize it a bit. This argument basically says that you can either vote for a candidate who is nearly perfect or, if you vote for another guy, you are voting for all the things he lacks—you are falling to pragmatism. So a citizen (especially a Christian one) can either vote his conscience or he can vote according to practical considerations.

There’s an unstated premise in this argument: practical matters have nothing to do with conscience.

But how well does that hold up? Suppose I’m fleeing from a burning hotel and discover a damsel in distress on the way out. She’s helpless, pinned down by a heavy beam. For some reason, my many hours of typing haven’t resulted in enough muscle to free her. So what’s the right thing to do? If I stay with her, we both die. If I leave her there and run for help, someone might be able to get her out. The idealist reasons that practical results are irrelevant and conscience requires that a man of principle must not abandon a damsel in distress. But most people abandon idealism in these situations. They understand that conscience sometimes dictates that we do what is practical.

Proponents of “voting your conscience” often make the mistake of assuming that if practical considerations can ever define the conscionable choice, they must always define the conscionable choice. Worse, they often assume that if practical considerations have any role in making ethical choices, they must have the dominant or exclusive role.

But the truth is that there are at least three approaches to the relationship between conscience (principle) and practical results:

  1. Pragmatism: practical results are always decisive and are all that matter.
  2. Idealism: practical results are completely irrelevant; only principle matters.
  3. Principled realism: practical results are part of the principle that matters.

Two of these approaches are ways of “voting your conscience.”

If I believe that voting for candidate C (who is a close match to my principles) will result in the election of candidate A (who believes in very little that I know to be wise and good), and I vote for candidate B (who is better than A) for that reason, I am voting my conscience. I just don’t happen to be an idealist.

Whatever the ticket ends up looking like in 2012, Christians ought to vote with the goal of putting power in the hands of the lesser of evils.

Aaron Blumer Bio

Aaron Blumer, SharperIron’s second publisher, is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in a small town in western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored Grace Baptist Church for thirteen years. He is employed in customer service for UnitedHealth Group and teaches high school rhetoric (and sometimes logic and government) at Baldwin Christian School.

Discussion

[Jim Peet]

I would like to suggest that perhaps this 3rd alternative is the least evil!
I agree, but they are not yet viable. A vote for any conservative 3rd party right now is a vote for liberalism.

Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)

@JNoël

Who said:
I agree, but they are not yet viable. A vote for any conservative 3rd party right now is a vote for liberalism
I will probably vote Republican (as I have in every Presidential election since 1972 - except the giant mistake I made in 1976).

What if we were accountable solely for our vote (voting for principle) …. and not the outcome of the election (voting pragmatically)? Then a pro-life vote would be, in my view, the only voting choice.

[Jim Peet]

What if we were accountable solely for our vote (voting for principle) …. and not the outcome of the election (voting pragmatically)? Then a pro-life vote would be, in my view, the only voting choice.
I have come to believe voting for the viable opposition to liberalism is a principled vote. If it is not, then I honestly do not know who I would vote for. I personally do not know any faithful, Spirit-led Christian person who would be a skilled President capable of inspirational leadership, biblically sound and wise decision making, and knowledgeable in world politics and the inner workings of the American bureaucracy. If I did, I suppose someone might be able to convince me to vote for him, but I would really have a tough time doing so if it were obvious that such a vote would be nothing more than a vote for a liberal victory.

America gets ungodly presidents because the voters are generally ungodly. Nothing supernatural is going to happen at the ballot boxes that will miraculously put a faithful believer in the Oval Office. God uses humans as part of his sovereign plan. If Christians in America return, en masse, to faithful Christian living, then God may provide a revival that will impact the masses to seek God and, eventually, those masses will bring forth candidates who are more in line with our thinking.

I probably just jumped off a cliff. Feel free to kick some dirt on me to finish the job. :)

Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)

Clearly, this point of view avoids at least a few minor facts.

Which don’t seem to get in the way of the thinking of too many people today.

For instance, If any of you had actually read ” http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/03…] Liberal Fascism ” by Jonah Goldberg. You would know that the modern Repugnant party is simply the flip side of the coin which features Demonrat socialists on on side and Progressive Repukes on the other.

Teddy Roosevelt was a candidate of the Progressive Party in 1912 (go look at Wikipedia).

Prescott Sheldon Bush (George Herbert Walker Bush’s father) was tied to the bank which helped Adolph Hitler. Let’s put it this way. Bush ran in the same circles, supported the same causes and was involved in running organizations with direct ties to Hitler and his progressive eugenicist friends.
Bush was politically active on social issues. He was involved with the American Birth Control League as early as 1942, and served as the treasurer of the first national capital campaign of Planned Parenthood in 1947. Bush was also an early supporter of the United Negro College Fund, serving as chairman of the Connecticut branch in 1951.
Planned Parenthood was started by Margaret Sanger ( who’s Wikipedia entry is full of lies about her beliefs about abortion, Hitler and eugenics) see this instead http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm Margaret Sanger . Sanger was a Malthusian eugenicist who’s ideas and philosophies she espoused in her publication “Birth Control Review” which where the basis for the Nazi Eugenics movement.
“The leaders in the German sterilization movement state repeatedly that their legislation was formulated after careful study of the California experiment as reported by Mr. Gosney and Dr. [Paul] Popenoe. It would have been impossible, they say, to undertake such a venture involving some 1 million people without drawing heavily upon previous experience elsewhere.” Who is Dr. Paul Popenoe? He was a leader in the U.S. eugenics movement and wrote (1933) the article ‘Eugenic Sterilization’ in the journal (BCR) that Margaret Sanger started. How many Americans did Dr. Popenoe estimate should be subjected to sterilization? Between five million and ten million Americans. “The situation [in the U.S.A] will grow worse instead of better if steps are not taken to control the reproduction of mentally handicapped. Eugenic sterilization represents one such step that is practicable, humanitarian, and certain in its results.”
I could go on and on. Look at the last few years. Since GWB left office, both his wife, his daughter and his mother have admitted that they are pro-abortion, and pro-sodomy marriage. Juan McMarkOCain’s wife and daughter have both called themselves pro-choice and pro-sodomy marriage.

During his presidency,(I did not vote for him for conscience reasons) Jorge the Younger Shrub,GWB, signed Progressive/Socialist legislation such as Ted Kennedy’s “No Child Left Behind” “Medicare Part D” TARP( “I had to abandon free market principles to save the free market”)”Faith Based Initiatives” (ever heard of separation of church and state) McCain-Feingold (what ever happened to free speech, even his own Supreme Court found this one unConstitutional), establishing the strip search police at the TSA, all of these things were philosophies of the Progressive left.

So how exactly is voting for a “lesser evil” Repugnant candidate working for us.

And some of you will vote for this guy as well. Wonder where his true political roots lie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dMcjJEXt9To] Willard Mittens Romney

Wow, Tom, you remind me of most Ron Paul supporters. Every time they start in with their wild screeds it just further convinces me not to vote for him.

-------
Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)

Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA

Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University

farmer Tom N…

I thought I might read Liberal Fascism but I’m thinking now I probably won’t…. if it’s full of strained conspiratorial dot-connecting and dot-imagining.

In any case, the OP is not about connecting ideological dots back to eugenics, and Hitler, etc.

It’s about the very common American scenario where Christian voters face a difficult scenario in November. The scenario is one in which two candidates are top contenders and everyone else is far behind by a large margin. Of the two top contenders, we face a choice between a guy with a fair number of bad ideas and a guy with even more bad ideas. To look at it positively (I’m a ‘half full’ guy I guess), we face a choice between a guy with a fair number of good ideas and a guy with a whole lot fewer good ideas.

As to character, the choices are often similar.

I’m assuming it’s obvious to most people that effectiveness in that office requires a combination of character, sound principles and actual skill. The thing about character and skill is that, when combined with bad ideas, they make the badness of the ideas worse rather than better—they increase the likelihood of effective accomplishment of bad policy.

So it tends to come down to ideas—socio-political principles and ideas about how to implement them.

It’s pretty easy to make a case that voting for more good ideas is better than voting for fewer good ideas.

Add to the mix the premise that voting for any of the folks who are in the alternative parties, and far behind the big two by a very large margin, is effectively a subtraction of a vote from the best guy among the top two. Because it’s a zero sum situation, subtraction from candidate A is, effectively, addition to candidate B.

(Interestingly, TRs effort to get elected as a Progressive resulted in the election of the Liberal, Woodrow Wilson… on balance, it’s doubtful that Taft would have been much better, but that turn events illustrates the 3rd party dynamic. TR came closer to election than any third partier before him or after him. But still not very close.)

I didn’t develop this idea much in the essay due to the need to limit the length.

As for liberal fascism, it does exist and is a major ideological problem of our day. There is influence in both parties because ideas are always heavily cross-polinated in the U.S. (and probably everywhere else in this age). That’s unfortunate, but the solution is not to vote for a guy who will not win and thereby ensure the victory of a real liberal fascist (quite possibly) over someone far less supportive of that agenda.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Just wanted to point out that while many conservatives have, arguably, a pinch of liberal fascism in their thinking, most libertarians I’ve read have more than a pinch of anarchism in their thinking. Given the high value Scripture places on government power (Rom.13 is a quick, easy example), I’d rather have the pinch of liberal fascism than the tablespoon of anarchism.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Farmer Tom N,

You’ve written in a style classic of conspiracy theories, mostly by using classic logical fallacies. Guilt by association is no way to convince people of your position.

Reading your descriptions of the history of the Bushes would be similar to me.

My grandfather was a racist until late in life. He ran in the same circles as KKK members. His son went to Bob Jones! Horrors! I went to Bob Jones and associated with children of racists. Therefore, what… should you suspect me of being a racist? You’re ignoring the basic fact that people are autonomous. Yes their associations and past influence them, but at the end of the day GWB was VERY different from his grandfather’s Northern liberalism. What does the fact that GWB’s children now support gay marriage have on GWB? It could mean something sinister, but most likely they just disagree with their father, which is a pretty common occurrence.

Thanks for the the kind words.

Haven’t had time to respond. 10 hours days and a trip to the doctor.

I believe in a lot of conspiracy theories. Like the one where Satan uses his forces of darkness to convince mankind that being a conservative is the same as being a believer in Jesus Christ.

Like the one that is portrayed in the movie http://agendadocumentary.com/ “Agenda” where the godless communists tell the world how they intend to destroy the USA, and then do exactly what they said.

As for GWB if you don’t understand the truth about GWB by now. No amout of facts or information is going to change you mind.

If you believe that GWB was good for this country, that a vote for him was “the lesser of two evils” so therefore it was a good vote, we as a nation get what we deserve when Willard “mittens” Romney becomes our next president.

Me, I’m going to stand before the Great Judge someday, and give account for what I did in my life, whether it be wood, hay or stubble, or something else. And I’m not going to have any trouble at all saying to my Savior, “Lord, I refused to compromise with evil, by using the right you gave me to choose my elected leaders, too choose a man who is a liberal progressive/socialist, just because he had an R by his name on the ballot.”

My conscience is clear.

Oh, and one more thing. I was not trying to convince you using guilt by association, (although I will admit the limited amount I wrote sounds like that) I was trying to get some of you to actually open your eyes and see the whole picture. Read “Liberal Fascism”, find out what the truth is about the origins of the communist/socialist/fascist/progressive left. Far to many “hero’s” of the Repugnant party, have numerous ties and ideological links to the radical left. They just tell you what you want to hear at election time, so you will be duped into voting for them. “Jesus is my favorite philosopher” being one of the most egregious ever.

[farmer Tom N]… to convince mankind that being a conservative is the same as being a believer in Jesus Christ.
Just curious. Who believes that?
As for GWB if you don’t understand the truth about GWB by now. No amout of facts or information is going to change you mind.
This is a common technique in conspiracy thinking: rather than making a claim and supporting it with solid evidence and sound reasoning, declare it to be obvious and assert that those who can’t see it are just hopeless.

Not a big deal, but it explains why so many conspiracy theories don’t get anywhere: “it’s obvious and you’re hopeless” is just not persuasive.

It’s not a reason to believe something (because it amounts to “Believe it because we said so”) and people generally want reasons, especially if the claim seems implausible from the start.
If you believe that GWB was good for this country, that a vote for him was “the lesser of two evils” so therefore it was a good vote, we as a nation get what we deserve when Willard “mittens” Romney becomes our next president.
Well, fortunately there is this thing called grace. We have pretty consistently gotten better than we actually deserve as a nation. In the case of GWB, I have no doubt at all that we got better than we would have had we elected the other guy.
I’m going to stand before the Great Judge someday, and give account for what I did in my life, whether it be wood, hay or stubble, or something else.
True. I have argued that we’ll also give account for the results of our choices because results are sometimes critical factors in weighing the right and wrong of a choice. I have yet to hear a counterargument on that point.
Read “Liberal Fascism”, find out what the truth is about the origins of the communist/socialist/fascist/progressive left. Far to many “hero’s” of the Repugnant party, have numerous ties and ideological links to the radical left.
I already know where these ideas came from. The problem with the reasoning there is some kind of part-whole fallacy (or maybe genetic fallacy also). It doesn’t follow that if a person believes in an idea or two that came from Source A, he agrees with the whole ideology or is One of Them.

The part-whole/genetic fallacy goes like this:
  • The Nazis believed in hard work (IOW, belief in hard work is part of Naziism)
  • Aaron believes in hard work. (Aaron holds to part of Naziism)
  • Therefore, Aaron believes in all Nazi ideas/is a Nazi (if he believes part, he believes all)
You can ‘prove’ anybody is anything that way. Could ‘prove’ that Obama is a member of the KKK.

(But for what it’s worth, yes, GWB evidenced several Liberal notions. Oddly enough, they were mostly in the arena of economics… but he had some Liberal thinking by omission also: seemed to have very little concern about the size of government, for example.)

I conceded earlier that there is constant mixing of ideas in America and many of the notions of the French radicals (and later radicals such as Marx) have found a home where they really don’t belong. But sentimentalism and populism are also bad ideas that came from bad places… and anarchism. My point is that there are no ideologically unstained parties or candidates.

As for saying whatever they want in order to get elected, pretty much true, sadly. But it’s usually possible to follow a person’s history and get a pretty good idea of how he really thinks. In their defense, the White House is not quite like anything else, so there is never any solid predicting of how a leader will perform once he gets there. Sometimes candidates make promises they really mean, but they have no idea how difficult keeping those promises is going to turn out to be. (But how do you get elected in this society without making those promises and doing the whole populist song and dance?)

I have a book recommendation for you. Pick up a copy of The Conservative Mind

by Russell Kirk. I haven’t gotten all the way through it, but the first several chapters alone are worth the cover price. Edmund Burk and John Adams… a great deal of wisdom there.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

[Aaron Blumer]… there are no ideologically unstained parties or candidates.
I’ve been telling people this for a long time. Our Heavenly Father is the perfect Father, and look at the silly things we do. Let’s even consider the coming millennial Kingdom. Jesus Christ will rule for a thousand years. There can be no better government than a God-led theocracy. Even with that there will be those who rebel against God, and, when Satan is released and deceives the nations, there will be numbers as the sand of the sea to rebel in the final battle.

America has some big problems these days, but there is still no other country on earth I’d rather live in.

Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)

Scripture teaches us to do all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31), and that all in government are to protect its citizens (Rom 13), with that in mind we should not vote for the lesser of two evils, but instead use our vote to promote Gods glory and honor? We live in a country where we have the privelage to vote for who ever we want even if they are not on the final ballot, so why should I feel compeled to pick the lesser of two eviles when I can write in a vote for the choice that will best honor God? Scripture does not tell me to vote for who will win but to make a choice that best glorifies God.

The book of Romans teaches that a government that punishes evil doers is glorying to God, Romney promises to enforce the law. He will be doing God’s will and glorifying him in this manner so you may feel comfortable voting for him. Obama, on the other hand, is violating the law and illegally making recess appointments. He is not glorifying God.

[DBaltich] Scripture teaches us to do all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31), and that all in government are to protect its citizens (Rom 13), with that in mind we should not vote for the lesser of two evils, but instead use our vote to promote Gods glory and honor? We live in a country where we have the privelage to vote for who ever we want even if they are not on the final ballot, so why should I feel compeled to pick the lesser of two eviles when I can write in a vote for the choice that will best honor God? Scripture does not tell me to vote for who will win but to make a choice that best glorifies God.
I pretty much addressed this argument in the article… just not using the term ‘glorifying God.’

We’re all agreed here that glorifying God is the right thing to do and that whatever is right is what glorifies Him best.

The question is what glorifies Him/is right in this situation? I’ve argued that a) results are often a major factor in defining what action is morally right (and, for us, what action glorifies God). I’ve also argued that b) since all people running for office are sinners, we really have no choice but to vote for someone who is “evil.” In that case, “less evil” has to be more/better glorifying to God than “more evil.”

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

First, if option a, b, and c are evil to different levels then how can our choice of that option glorify God, evil may have stages but at the end of the day it is still evil, and therefore does not glorify God, (be patient with me I am just asking questions as a learner). Second, following the lesser of two evils logic and lining it up with the sovernty of God, if God has already appointed who will be elected shouldnt we vote for the one who we will win the election regardless of their level of evil? Third if I have the freedom to write in a canidate that has no chance to win but is a choice worthy to glorify God why not write them in.