No soliciting! Accommodating demand avoidance during election season

Election season can feel like an annual assault on the agency and nervous systems of those of us who experience demand anxiety or demand avoidance or identify with having a PDA (pervasive drive for autonomy) profile.

Ordinary activities of citizenship here and there is one thing. Occasionally being asked to sign a petition walking into a store or being recruited to volunteer for a neighborhood committee. These things may be rare enough that they're somewhere on the spectrum from tolerable to exciting. But the weeks leading up to an election, demands (rather than friendly requests you can simply decline) look more like bombardment: unsolicited texts and campaign emails flooding your already overwhelming inbox, phone calls from unknown numbers, targeted ads, a barrage of signs that make hostile, bold claims you you're supposed to form an opinion about at every stop light, and flyers on our doorsteps are relentless.

Whether you care deeply about politics and want to make as informed a decision as you can when voting or you are apathetic about it all, the exposure to the demands isn't necessarily more or less impactful. The desire to be left alone or to hunker down in isolated peace can really become exacerbated in this context. You might be somewhere in between, maybe feeling that participating matters while also wanting nothing to do with the process of being pressured, persuaded, and told what to do that political science research apparently suggests is the best method to get people to care. Seems pretty counterproductive to those of us who actually have to fight the urge not to vote to regain autonomy. When every message seems to be telling you how to vote, it can feel like everyone is trying to take the decision away from you.

Because my therapist algorithm presents me with a lot of nice little infographics on supporting PDAers often, including examples of declarative language and subtle shifts in expectation-setting that are less activating, it's especially jarring to leave my house and enter a world filled wit hundreds of signs with big red all-caps text demanding that I "VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION WHATEVER." I think, "I'll do as I damn well please, thank you very much," and then I realize, "Wait, I don't even know what I want. I don't know the truth, I do need the info! But not the biased info. What is that proposition about??"

The work of finding reliable information is its own demand on top of coping with those thrown into our laps. The pressure to vote, being told "it's your civic duty," or even the more positive reframe, "Your great-grandmother didn't have the right to vote, this is something you can't take for granted" are demands that can wreak havoc on the nervous system, even if we are in full agreement with these statements.

Every campaign makes claims. Every source seems to have an angle. To take them at their word would be to risk falling or propaganda, but investigating the claims, finding the context, and figuring out what's missing, let alone determining which sources can be trusted is another set of demands. The go-to affirming intervention for demand anxiety is, to no one's surprise, reducing the demands. Make the things easier. Put things on the back burner. The problem always arises when everything is equally important. How do we find clear answers to straightforward questions when the candidates are invested in making everything so confusing that we ignore the nuance, throw our hands up to make it all end, and just vote for the person with the prettiest sign or the scariest message. One side's explanation is just a bunch of jargon or an attack on the other side, and the other side is a counter-attack. How do we trace our vote back and find the plot when there is so much muck to wade through? PDA nervous systems are notoriously great at spotting manipulation, but that strength becomes a stressor when the manipulation is activating, and we're not adequately equipped to cope so we shut down or retreat. Campaigns tend to feel like manipulation from all directions.

Opting out might feel like the only way to get your agency back, and it's a valid option if you haven't been following anything and worry your vote might do more harm than good, despite what people say about voting just to be a good citizen. But if you want to participate in democracy and/or not voting conflicts with your values, you're left in the difficult position of figuring out how to access participation safely. The answer doesn't have to be forcing yourself to tolerate more demands. You can focus on finding ways to protect your autonomy while deciding what, if anything, you want to engage with.

Reduce the intrusion of the demands

You don't owe every campaign (or any campaign) access to your attention. You don't even have to resolve your feelings about the politics before you push a campaign away. Some strategies I use:

• Put a sign on your door. Something like "I've already voted. Please don't leave campaign materials" reduces the flyers and knocks I get. You can also ask visitors not to solicit. This year, I kicked it up a notch and put a basket right next to my front door with a sign that reads "trash can for campaign flyers" so they can throw them directly in, since that's where they'll be going anyway.

  I recognize canvassers are often dedicated volunteers or workers who must meet door-knocking metrics to do their job, and my goal isn't to make that harder. I'm just not the audience, and signs let them know in a way that preserves my integrity better than my dysregulated words will.
  

• Use your spam filters liberally. Report unsolicited campaign texts and emails as spam when appropriate, block unwanted senders, and use your phone's call-filtering features. You don't have to read every message before deciding you don't want to receive it, even if you might later vote for that candidate. In fact, voting for them might be easier if you disengage with the triggering solicitation.
  

• Unsubscribe where it makes sense. For legitimate mailing lists, unsubscribe if you want to. For suspicious messages, don't click links; use your email or phone's reporting tools instead.
  

• Take a break from political content. Mute keywords, hide ads where possible, unfollow accounts, or temporarily remove apps that keep putting political content in front of you.
  

• Make a no-politics zone. You can decide that certain rooms, times of day, or activities are off-limits to election coverage. Eating dinner, walking your dog, or watching your favorite show doesn't have to become another opportunity to encounter a campaign message.

Get information without handing over ownership of your vote

If you want to vote, you deserve the opportunity to make an informed choice without having to sift through an endless stream of persuasion. A few approaches may make that process more manageable:

• Start with the actual ballot. Your county elections office can provide official ballot information, candidate lists, and election procedures. For California voters, the official state voter guide and your county's voter information guide are solid starting points, but the info can be dense, and the little bios the candidates submit may be frustrating if they read as promotional rather than informative. I found a reliable blog specific to my county's candidates whose writers generally share my political views and list their "picks" for each office in a clear format with a simple rationale. This is a nice shortcut that still affords me my choice, and if I find I'm activated because I'm voting with the blog, I'll vote differently on a race that I'm not invested in or that isn't close at all just to alleviate my anxiety about being "told" what to do.
  

  You can also use nonpartisan voter resources as a starting point (not an authority to obey) if you don't already have established political leanings or if you're stuck on a certain issue. Organizations like the League of Women Voters provide candidate and ballot information. CalMatters in California is well-organized and searchable. Ballotpedia can also be useful for background and ballot-measure summaries. No single resource will necessarily answer everything, so check important claims against the underlying evidence when possible if you have the spoons. But if you don't, voting alone is more than 44% of Americans did in 2024, so feel free to celebrate yourself.

  
  

• Separate facts from recommendations. You can look up what a proposition would change, what a candidate's record shows, or what a policy actually does without first deciding whether you support it. Try turning a campaign claim into a specific question you can investigate independently.
  

• Ask for help with the administrative work. If researching candidates or propositions is something you want to do but can't currently manage, someone you trust might help gather information without making the decision for you. Body doubling while filling in your mail-in ballot can be both a source of camaraderie and a strategy to make a serious thing more casual, even fun.
  

• Compare sources with different perspectives. For consequential claims, look for original documents, relevant public records, nonpartisan analyses, and reporting that explains its evidence. You don't need to give every source equal weight, and you don't need to read everything. Look for agreement on verifiable facts across sources with different perspectives, and pay attention to whether a source distinguishes evidence from opinion.
  

• Decide what information is enough. You might need to understand a proposition's practical effects, costs, and who would be affected. You might want to know a candidate's relevant experience and policy positions. You might have one issue that matters much more to you than the others. You can establish your own criteria before researching, rather than letting each new message dictate what you need to investigate next.

And if you can't find a clear answer? You are allowed to acknowledge uncertainty. You can make the best decision available with the information you have, leave a contest blank if you choose, write-in your dog as an act of rebellion, or decide that you need to prioritize certain issues over others. You don't have to achieve total certainty before you're allowed to make a decision.

Reclaim your agency in the process

Voting is not a test of whether you can override your own needs. If you care about voting, the whole point is to make participating an accessible thing, not to tolerate unlimited amounts of pressure. If you don't care about voting, you don't have to manufacture interest just because other people insist that you should feel differently. Here are some ideas for changing how you engage with the task itself:

• Choose your own "politics time." Instead of responding whenever a political message appears, pick a time that works for you, if and when you want to (never is also an option).
  

• Set your own stopping point. You might decide to research one proposition, compare two sources, or spend 20 minutes gathering information. You can stop when you've reached your chosen limit, even if there is more information available. You can also hyperfocus to your heart's content if it's doing something positive for you. No one gets to tell you you're taking it too seriously or that your vote won't make a difference (if that were true, people wouldn't be kissing babies and spending millions competing for it, now would they?)
  

• Separate deciding from doing. You can research candidates one day and fill out your ballot another day. You can make your decision privately before dealing with the logistics of voting.
  

• Create your own decision-making framework. Write down what matters to you before reading recommendations. You can return to your own priorities when campaign messaging starts to pull you in competing directions.
  

• Give yourself permission to disengage afterward. Once you've voted, you can stop researching, mute the news, and refuse further campaign contact as much as possible. You don't have to remain available for political persuasion just because an election is approaching.
  

You can care about the outcome of an election without making yourself constantly available to the election process. You have nothing to prove. Voting is anonymous. If you want to say you already voted and you didn't, it hurts no one. If you want to say you voted for the other person, they'll never be able to confirm that. Do whatever you need to do to get your voting goals met and your autonomy needs met; you don't have to pick one. You can want accurate information without accepting every campaign's invitation to be persuaded. Remember those math teachers who would say, "I don't care how you get your answer if it's right and you show your work"? That applies here, too! You can make a values-aligned decision with your vote, and it doesn't matter how you arrive at it.