What happens when neither candidate is worthy of your vote?

Citizenship in 2016 presented many Americans with a dilemma.

If one decided to forego voting in the presidential election, was one’s citizenship obligation compromised?

Even though the recent presidential debates illustrated that neither candidate deserved our vote, we may have had to swallow hard and vote for one or the other, or write-in someone else.

{mosads}Citizenship involves many aspects of being an American. Community volunteering is good citizenship. So is engaging in knowledgeable discussions of current events. Knowing about one’s country, its history, economics, foreign policies and government structure is good citizenship.

And voting at election time may be the ultimate in good citizenship. Democracy assumes participation. When a higher percentage of voters casts a ballot, elected officials represent a more active percentage of the electorate.

When few vote, or are issue-ignorant, those elected represent a minority of those who exercise their franchise; they may be then less accountable.

Voting in America has fluctuated for decades; some 57.5 percent voted in the 2012 presidential election, meaning that about 28 percent of all eligible voters chose our leaders. Who knows how many voters will show this year. (In the United Kingdom, 72 percent voted in the Brexit referendum last summer, where the country voted to leave the European Union).

We’re stuck with our leaders’ decisions, so it’s in our collective best interests to know the candidates, the issues and participate at election time.

This year posed a dilemma for many voters, though. Usually we vote for someone we like. Voting is an emotional act: We become attached to a candidate’s face, demeanor, history or policies, and support that candidate at election time or otherwise work for that candidate’s election.

Supporting a candidate is good citizenship — it engages us in the electoral process and gives us a stake in the winner’s decisions after election. It signifies a government “of, by and for the people.”

This year, many voters were conflicted by their citizenship obligations to vote, and their distaste for the two major presidential candidates.

An Idaho worker recently posed a common question to me: “I don’t like either candidate. One’s dishonest and the other is inexperienced and says some crazy things. What should I do?”

He wasn’t alone.

That question was also asked this year by millions of voters, all seeking to be good citizens who vote, but all extremely dissatisfied with their choices for president. Voters are protective of their citizenship obligation to vote, but most voters want to vote for a candidate, not just against a candidate they dislike more.

Voters should always vote down-ticket and either write-in someone at the top, or simply skip the presidential vote on the basis that neither candidate has earned a citizen’s vote.

Candidates must earn their votes.

Candidates knock on doors, run political ads, hold rallies and technologically seek out voters, hoping voters are impressed enough in the run-up to an election that they’ll cast a vote for a candidate to whom they’ve been exposed.

Name recognition counts immensely at election time — perhaps that’s why 95 percent of incumbents are reelected.

Voters know an incumbent’s name and figure if they’ve been elected previously, they’re likely worthy of another vote. When longtime officeholders are defeated, it shows that voters cared enough to break the habit of incumbent-voting. It demonstrates that voters were paying attention to an incumbent’s record.

And change at election time can be refreshing; a new candidate is frequently energized by being elected and strives to remain in office by being responsive to the public who voted. New candidates oftentimes bring fresh ideas to governing, too.

But 2016 seemed different than other elections about which citizens are blasé.

Many voters this year seriously disliked the candidates, feeling both were unworthy of a vote. One friend believed it his “citizenship duty” to work to make sure one presidential candidate never set foot in the Oval Office, not because he liked the alternative candidate, but because he so adamantly opposed the one that he considered active opposition to be an act of patriotism.

So if both presidential candidates would be bad for America, there may be no alternative but to support one or the other as the lesser of two evils, in fulfillment of our citizenship duty, or else write-in someone else. This election may also have been the “evil of two lessers” pitted against one another.

That’s perhaps the ultimate “cop-out,” but American democracy presented that dilemma to voters this year.

Citizens may then be spurred to seek candidates of virtue for future elections, candidates worthy of the office they seek.

Nethercutt is a former U.S. representative from Washington state, serving from 1995 to 2005.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.