The Problem of Voting for Candidates Who Promise to do Evil

In this presidential election season, you’ve likely heard someone say something like this: “I understand if you can’t vote for Trump. But no Christian can vote for Harris.” Implicit in a statement of this sort are several assumptions, but no arguments in support of any of them. The statement assumes: (a) it’s morally permissible for a Christian to vote for Trump, (b) it’s not morally permissible for a Christian to vote for Harris, and (c) it may be morally permissible for a Christian to abstain from voting and/or to vote third-party.

But are any of those assumptions actually true? Each is worth closer consideration.

Republican Form of Government

In the United States, we live under a democratic republican form of government. This means that we as citizens do not, as a general matter, vote directly on the laws that will govern the country. Rather, we vote for representatives who each hold a portfolio of policy positions and, once elected to office, vote for or sign laws based on those positions. It is the votes or signatures of the representatives, not the votes of the citizens, that lead directly to the enactment of laws. 

To think rightly about how as Christians to vote for the government officials who represent us, it is critical first to think rightly about God’s design for government. Since voting is how government leaders are selected in the United States, knowing which leaders we should select through our voting requires knowing what God thinks those leaders should do if selected. 

Scripture teaches that the authority a government official exercises is authority delegated from God (Rom. 13). No one has an inherent right to govern. Even if someone is elected by others to govern, that person has only the moral authority to govern that God has assigned. Because the authority government officials exercise is authority on loan from God, it follows that government officials are morally obliged to use that divinely-conferred authority to advance God’s justice in this world. They must, as they bear the sword, do so as a terror to evildoers and for the protection of the innocent (Rom. 13:4). As Peter put it, government officials are “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Pet. 2:14). 

One difficulty in voting for officials who will carry out their role as God designed is that those for whom we vote will, once in office, be faced with an array of policy issues. It’s almost certain that voters, even those who favor a particular politician as a general matter, will disagree with some of that politician’s acts or votes in office. In a perfect world, I would prefer that the politicians for whom I vote support a portfolio of policy positions that aligns perfectly with my understanding of God’s justice. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world where, even if a particular candidate for office shares my understanding of God’s justice, he or she may disagree with my view as to how that justice should be implemented through public policy. 

To take a simple example, both I and my representative may share the view that God’s justice requires caring for the poor, and yet the representative and I may disagree about whether a government-based solution or a market-based solution is the best means to address a particular plight faced by the poor in my city. And this is only one of many issues that my representative may be called on to address while in office. I am likely to agree with the representative’s approach to some policy solutions and disagree with others. Faced with a candidate or candidates with whom I agree with on some policy issues and disagree with on others, I am left as a Christian to exercise prudence in selecting the candidate who I believe holds positions that will accomplish the greatest good.

At other times, however, my disagreement with a politician may not be a disagreement about the best policy means of achieving what we both understand to be God’s justice. In some instances, the politician may actually be seeking to use his or her office to achieve an end that is evil. Perhaps the candidate is proposing to pursue only one evil end, while at the same time promising to pursue many good and just ends. But a candidate for office who promises to use his or her office to achieve evil presents a choice of an entirely different sort for the Christian voter.  When I vote for a candidate for office, I am engaging in an act that, along with the voting acts of my fellow citizens, may turn that candidate into a government official. Which means that if the candidate has proposed to use his or her government office for evil, I could be a cause of that evil were I to vote for that candidate. It may be an evil that I oppose, but it is nonetheless an evil that I, working together with my fellow citizens, empowered. Thus, I could be morally complicit in that evil if I vote for that candidate.

This presents a moral dilemma for the Christian: Can I engage in the act of voting for a candidate who I know will use his or her government office for some evil end? Take abortion, for example. Can I as a Christian vote to empower a candidate who has promised to use his or her office to protect the right to kill other human beings through abortion? And does the answer depend on how many other good ends the government official will also use his or her office to achieve?

In short, I believe the answer to at least the last two of those questions is “no.” Christians have long recognized the evil of abortion. The Didache, a first century Christian manual, commands

 “you shall not murder a child by abortion.” Tertullian, writing in the second century, stated that “a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even a fetus in the womb.” Basil the Great wrote in the fourth century that it is “murder[]” to “administer drugs to cause abortion.” Protestant Reformer John Calvin wrote that “the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy.”

The most fundamental task of government is protecting innocent life and punishing those who threaten it (Gen. 9:6). As both the Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession put it, God has “ordained civil magistrates . . . and . . . armed them with the power of the sword . . . for defense . . . of them that do good.” A government that disclaims responsibility for that most basic task is illegitimate. A candidate must be committed to that task to be morally qualified for office no matter what other good policy he or she may promise to pursue in office. A government or candidate who lacks a basic commitment to protecting innocent life is an evil to be avoided and opposed. 

The 2024 Major Party Presidential Candidates

Given this clear Christian teaching, a moral dilemma has presented itself in an especially acute way in the US presidential election of 2024. For the first time in my voting lifetime, neither presidential candidate of the two major political parties is pro-life. Indeed, both candidates are explicitly pro-choice in their policy positions. 

Vice President Harris’s position on abortion can fairly be described as, at a minimum, aggressively pro-choice. She has vocally and prominently campaigned on her pro-choice views, making so-called abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign.

At the same time, former President Trump has made clear that, on the issue of abortion, he is also running for president in 2024 as a pro-choice candidate. He has stated that he:

• Would veto a nationwide abortion ban if it reached his desk
• Believes that, even at the state level, a 6-week abortion ban (which would still allow 35% of abortions) is “terrible” and “too short”
• Views a 15-week abortion ban (which would allow 95% of abortions) as “very reasonable”
• Would have a presidential administration that would be “great for . . . reproductive rights”
• Would not federally outlaw the abortion drug mifepristone (which frustrates state-law abortion bans)
• Would seek federal legislation protecting and funding in vitro fertilization (which, by some estimates, accounts for more annual deaths of the unborn than abortion)

The unavoidable conclusion is that, whatever the platform of candidate Trump in 2016 and 2020, and whatever good Trump did in his first term in office by appointing judges who overturned Roe v. Wade (and that was most certainly a moral good), 2024 candidate Trump is promising to use his office, if re-elected as president, to commit grave evil. 

To be sure, Trump has made the legal protection of abortion less of a feature of his campaign than has Harris. She has been unwilling to commit to any limits on the more than 1 million abortions per year in the United States. She would provide legal protections to those who seek and perform 100% of those abortions. But Trump’s stated policy on abortion would protect by law as many as 95% of those 1 million annual abortions.

So when Christians assert that it would be wrong for their fellow believers to vote for Harris in light of the evil to which she has committed herself if elected, I wholeheartedly agree. No good she might do can overcome evil of this magnitude. But the same argument applies to Trump, who has also committed himself to using his office to advance the evil of abortion on an extraordinary scale. 

Thus, I don’t believe that a Christian should take the affirmative act of voting for either of those candidates knowing that such a vote, when combined with the votes of fellow citizens, will empower the candidate to act on those evil intentions. In other words, it’s not enough to say, “I understand if you can’t vote for Trump.” The argument against voting for Harris because of her position on abortion is, in 2024, also an argument against voting for Trump. We should not use our votes affirmatively to assist either of the major party candidates in achieving their stated evil ends.

Presented with two major party candidates who have campaigned on promises to do evil, I believe the better option is to vote for a third-party candidate committed to protecting innocent life (and not otherwise proposing to do evil). One such option is Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party. The American Solidarity Party is founded on Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinist thought. It seeks to advance policies that protect innocent life in all its stages, from birth to death. You can read more about the party here.

Potential Arguments

One recent argument I have heard in response is that, despite Trump’s stated positions on abortion, Christians should vote for him because of his position on immigration. The argument goes something like this: illegal immigration is diluting the votes of conservatives and empowering liberals; thus, stopping illegal immigration is a critical step to securing a conservative electoral majority in future elections that could outlaw abortion. In other words, it’s a tactical argument. It’s an argument that is willing to accept short-term losses on the issue of abortion in hopes of supposed long-term gains on that issue.

But you know who else is making tactical arguments of this sort? Some Christians who advocate voting for Harris. Indeed, David French has made this very type of tactical argument (vote for Harris to rid the Republican party of Trump to achieve a more conservative Republican candidate in future elections). To be clear, I’m not defending his tactical argument. In fact, I think it’s wrong. (Full disclosure: In the summer of 2020, I seriously considered this approach but ultimately concluded that I couldn’t—and didn’t—vote this way.) I don’t believe I may assist one candidate who has promised to do evil if elected in order to defeat another candidate who has promised to do evil if elected, at least not if I have a third-party option. Assisting the candidate set on doing evil could make me morally complicit in that evil. And as the apostle Paul said, I cannot “do evil that good may come” (Rom. 3:8). This is a fundamental principle of Christian ethics. 

But my larger point is that once you go down the road of making tactical arguments in favor of voting Trump, you have ceded the moral high ground in criticizing those who make tactical arguments in favor of voting Harris. You can’t point to Harris’s position of abortion on demand and screech “you support this” at Christians voting for Harris without owning that, using that logic, you likewise “support” 95% of those abortions if you’re voting for Trump. You’ve acknowledged that you can assist a candidate who wants to do evil with his or her elective office. Now the debate is just about adding up the net good and evil of each candidate. The argument has become a utilitarian debate (the greatest good for the greatest number, even if someone is murdered in the process). I believe the better approach is to eschew moral pragmatism of this sort and refuse to compromise with a candidate committed to evil, at least when a third option exists.

In response, some argue that my voting for a third-party candidate is throwing my vote away. One of the major party candidates will, the argument goes, win and by voting third party I am abdicating my responsibility to choose the lesser evil (the 95% of abortions candidate) so that I can avoid getting my hands dirty. I’m unpersuaded. My vote this presidential election will be, like everyone’s vote, about 1 / 160 millionth of the votes cast. That’s true regardless of the candidate for whom I cast my vote. Whether my vote accomplishes the election of a candidate depends on what others do, and that’s true regardless of whether I vote for a major party or third-party candidate. In all but the swing states, more than forty percent of voters will cast their votes for a major party candidate who cannot and will not win in their state. That doesn’t mean they wasted their votes. They did what voters do: make their pick even when it won’t “work.”

The fact that others will use their votes to assist candidates set on doing evil doesn’t mean I’ve wasted my vote by using it to stand against evil. I’m using the limited platform I have to register my 1 / 160 millionth of a statement that both parties should be stopped in their mission to do evil. If anything, the reporting of voting returns—including the reporting of the percentage that did not vote for one of the major party candidates—amplifies my statement beyond what I could achieve otherwise. That’s hardly a waste.

To be sure, how loud that statement of protest will be depends on what other Christians do. Maybe the statement will be barely a whisper, just a few of us out of the 160 million voters. If that’s the case, I’m still willing to hold the lonely line in hopes of keeping the flame of the pro-life cause alive. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Millions of Christians could join me in voting to protect innocent life by voting for (including by writing in) a third-party option. I hope you will.