“Because participation in a method at least implies some level of consent to the method.”

It certainly does not, unless you intend to obliterate the distinction between consent and surrender to coercion. Does turning your wallet over to a mugger, in order to avoid being beaten or stabbed, constitute “some level of consent” to being mugged?

“It might be possible, but generally speaking democratic elections are recognized as legitimate by people around the world based on the participation of the citizens within the area where the elections are held.”

But how is this the voter’s problem, rather than the problem of the people wrongly treating the resulting government as legitimate? It’s true that many people believe that voter participation makes the elected government legitimate; people believe all kinds of crazy things. But since plebiscites don’t confer legitimate authority to the government elected, the inference is an irrational one. And I see how I’m under any moral obligation not to take actions that people will irrationally treat as conferring legitimacy on the process. Rather, they have a duty not to make irrational inferences.

“To some degree, he did indeed lend legitimacy to the concept of slave ownership by his actions, although there is no doubt that was not his intention.”

How? Douglass considered it (and said so, in public) nothing more or less than paying a ransom. He did not pay it because his so-called “owner” was entitled to one dime, but rather because Douglass did not want to spend any more of his life in fear of slave-catchers. Of course, it’s true that his former slavemaster, and the courts, did think of it as a “sale” of Douglass to himself. But so what? Why is their take on it any more authoritative than Douglass’s? How did Douglass’s actions commit him in any way to accepting or endorsing their false beliefs about the situation?

“The act of participation would only serve to sanction the process.”

How?

Isn’t it possible to submit to a process imposed on you by others, in order to defend your own safety, without conceding the legitimacy of the process?

Did Frederick Douglass “sanction” slavery when he decided to “buy” himself from his former slavemaster, rather than continually risk being sent back into bondage by any slave-catcher who could get ahold of him?

Let’s suppose (contrary to fact, of course) that we lived in a simple majoritarian democracy where every issue was decided by popular referendum. Let’s also suppose that bills of attainder are allowed, and that there’s a referendum up tomorrow on a bill of attainder stating “David is guilty of sedition; he shall be whipped and all his property confiscated.”

Do you think that under these circumstances, you’re still morally obliged not to vote? Or would a “No” vote be a justifiable act of (attempted) self-defense?