To vote or not to vote, that is the question we do not dare to ask in our parliamentary systems, where elections are considered a sacred ritual. By defending the legitimacy of abstention, this essay confronts the conviction that voting is a duty, and that refusing to vote is a dangerous heresy. Much more than a mere praise for abstention, this book offers a radical critique of the electoral system.

In addition to recalling the reasons given by abstainers from all walks of life for not going to vote, the author describes the often amusing strategies devised to subvert the electoral game: calls for boycotts or zero votes, zany and satirical candidacies of anarchist plants, animals, comedians, punks or gnomes. This gallery of figures of resistance to the vote also reveals the many powerful self-defense mechanisms of the electoral system, which always succeeds in imposing its own rules, even on the most rebellious people. Therefore, abstention is only fruitful if it goes hand in hand with autonomous, popular and solidarity-based commitment and mobilization.