Don't vote, it only encourages them.

Connolly’s line is a piece of sardonic, anti-establishment humor: it treats politicians as a self-perpetuating class who thrive on public participation and legitimacy. By jokingly advising people not to vote, the quote flips a civic duty into a form of protest, implying that electoral politics can feel like a rigged game in which any engagement merely “encourages” the same behaviors. The exaggeration is the point—rather than a literal call for abstention, it functions as a comic expression of disillusionment, capturing the tension between democratic ideals and the everyday experience of political cynicism.