foot voting

noun

Expressing one's preferences through one's actions, by voluntarily participating in or withdrawing from an activity, group, or process; especially, physical migration to leave a situation one does not like, or to move to a situation one regards as more beneficial.

Meanings

nounfoot voting (uncountable)
  1. idiomaticuncountableExpressing one's preferences through one's actions, by voluntarily participating in or withdrawing from an activity, group, or process; especially, physical migration to leave a situation one does not like, or to move to a situation one regards as more beneficial.

    Foot voting is an inherently selfish individual move; it is not intended to serve the body politic.

    2016, Ronald Nikles (30 November 2016), Sorry, Jews—voting with your feet is not an option in the age of Trump, Scribe, Forward (retrieved 2017-10-30; archived from the original 2016-12-01)
    2 more examples

    Foot voting provides much stronger incentives than ballot box voting for both information acquisition and rational information use.

    2011, Ilya Somin (January 2011), Foot voting, political ignorance, and constitutional design (PDF), Social Philosophy and Policy, 28(1):202–227, DOI:10.1017/S0265052510000105, George Mason University Law and Economics Research Paper No. 12-11 – via George Mason University (note: the George Mason University header page gives the date of the journal article incorrectly as November 2010), page 210

    We already do a lot of foot voting in Nigeria, mostly by migrating abroad in search of greener pastures for reasons that are usually economic. Even within Nigeria, some foot voting is happening with the increase in rural-urban migration.

    2017, Ayobami Adekojo (6 September 2017), Restructuring and foot voting, Daily Times of Nigeria (retrieved 2017-10-31; archived from the original 2017-10-31)

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with foot voting

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Cite this entry
APA

foot voting. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/foot%20voting

MLA

“foot voting.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/foot%20voting. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “foot voting,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/foot%20voting.

Source: foot voting on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.