Responsible Voting Guide

Voting for the right leaders is one of your most important duties. Here is a guide for your conscience, so you can apply the most basic moral principles to your civic duty. (Updated on 23 March 2022)

1. Do good and avoid evil. Choose politicians with the character, public policy, and competence to do good. Avoid politicians who will do evil.

In a democracy, citizens like you determine who will be your leaders. You are like the employer selecting whom to hire. Like all good employers, you have to seriously study the integrity, past performance, accomplishments, and policies of the candidates, so you can choose what is best for your country. 

Remember: You are answerable for your choice—and its social consequences. 

2. You are obliged to do as much good to society as you can. Vote for politicians who truly have the habits and ability to work for the common good—leaders who will do much good because of their excellent example and performance. 

The best leaders, according to Harvard Business Review, are those who have high moral and ethical standards. 

Encourage, support, and vote for such politicians, and help multiply the number of such politicians. If God calls you to be a politician, be a politician. 

3. It is good to oppose evil. And so it is very good to oppose politicians whose life, actions, and public policies will spread evil.

4. Never do evil to do good. A good end never justifies evil deeds. A good social objective never justifies using immoral means to achieve that objective. It is evil to steal, lie, kill, and promote family and sexual disorders to “improve” society.

5. It is evil to directly cooperate in evil. It is evil to vote for a politician who is in favor of evil actions, such as dishonesty, abortion, divorce, devaluation of marriage and the family, violation of human rights, suppression of religious freedom, contraception, sexual promiscuity, etc. if the voter’s intent is to support these actions.  If you vote this way, you will be guilty of grave social evil by formally cooperating in that evil.

6. You are allowed to vote for a politician with an immoral public policy on two conditions: (1) If you reject that immoral policy and (2) if you vote for that person for other morally grave reasons that are proportional to the immorality. If the reason for your support is not proportionate to the great evil that will be done, then you will somehow be guilty of this evil.

7. What to do when all candidates are in favor of an intrinsic evil: you may decide (1) not to vote for anyone, or (2) to vote for the candidate who is considered less likely to push for immoral actions and more likely to work for the common good and foster greater moral values. This choice is a matter of doing good by limiting the evil that can be done by the other candidates if they were elected.

8. Not all actions and policies have the same moral value. Some actions and policies are better than others.  Immaterial, interior and spiritual things (e.g, values and morality, education, human life, religion and its free exercise, human rights, attitude of uplifting the poor and the weak) are more important than physical, material things. Foundational for society are (1) respect for human life in all stages. (2) strengthening marriage and the family, (3) upholding truth and justice, (4) care for the poor and the weak, (5) respect for rights and freedom, (6) eradicating unjust inequalities and corruption, (7) promotion of virtues, and (8) peace and order. 

9. Prudence is a key virtue to practice. Prudence means to discern what is truly good. It implies an honest, objective, and diligent study of the facts about the candidates. Given the abundance of fake news, seek out the most reliable, unbiased information about the candidates, their policies, values and patterns of behavior: Truly honest or involved in corruption? Selfless or selfish? Intelligent or not so?  Competent or incompetent? Capable of addressing the particular issues of the country or not?

To assess competence, look at each one's actual accomplishments and results achieved. Above all assess the most important leadership competency--high ethical and moral standards. 

Truth and facts matter. They set us free. You can help others by pointing out wrong information and by spreading the right information about the candidates. You may even broadcast a candidate's faults to warn people of the dangers of voting for that person. Also, listen to the guidance of Chuch authorities as regards the important socio-moral issues of the times.   

Because of the great influence of an elected official on society, it is evil to make a hasty, emotional, self-interested, and purely partisan choice in such a grave matter. At the same time, you have to respect legitimate differences in political opinions, since no one has a monopoly of the facts. Politics has limits as the art of the possible.

Above all, ask God to enlighten you and to send the best leaders for your country. Here are some prayers you may use. 

10. Respect for the dignity of the human person is the foundation of all morality. Everyone is called to serve each person and all persons. Each one has a duty to participate in socio-political action as much as he can to create a more humane, just, and peaceful society that will do good for each human being.

This guide is based on the document, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, by the USCCB.   

These one-page leaflets have started going viral around the world. Leaflets were posted in the website of the Archdiocese of Westminster in London ("The Mother Church of England"), in the Corpus Christi Parish in Canada,  in Kenya and in Macau. To get the full collection, please see this: One Page Leaflets for New Evangelization Going Viral!