By not picking, voters like Jeremy Gosnell just might help pick the next president of the United States.

The Oakland, Maryland, property manager calls himself a loyal Democrat. He’s never voted Republican, but he can’t get behind his party’s presidential candidate.

“Kamala Harris is a tough sell for me,” Gosnell wrote during our email conversation about his dilemma.

He doesn’t think Vice President Harris, who is Black and South Asian, speaks to white middle-class Americans like him. He incorrectly believes that her promise to offer $25,000 in down payment help for first-time homebuyers would be available only to Black Americans.

He’s angry that Harris didn’t call out former Vice President Dick Cheney for pushing the country into war with Iraq after he broke with his party and endorsed her.

Gosnell understands who former President Donald Trump is but admires high-profile independents around him.

“While I can’t stand Donald Trump and shudder at the thought of voting for him, he’s surrounded himself with people that I respect, like RFK Jr and [former Hawaii congresswoman] Tulsi Gabbard,” he wrote.

I agree with none of Gosnell’s explanations for his indecision on the cusp of Election Day. I’m sharing what he and other undecided voters told me for this reason: Polls show the race between Harris and Trump so squeaky tight that undecided voters could be the deciding factor.

Well, not in Maryland.

We’re so far beyond blue that cerulean belongs on our red, white, yellow and black patchwork state flag. Maryland’s 10 Electoral College votes will go to Harris. Zero doubt.

What Gosnell and others have to say is relevant because it might mirror the thinking of kindred voters in battleground states expected to decide this election: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan.

The handful of voters across Maryland I contacted through social media sounded different than being torn. At this point, it sounds like willful indecision.

That’s the lesson of former Gov. Larry Hogan. To the Republican candidate for Senate, Harris vs. Trump is a choice between negative consequences too hard to make.

“I’ve decided that neither one of them has earned my vote, and I’ve never voted for anybody I didn’t believe in,” the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate told CNN host Wolf Blitzer Tuesday night.

When Blitzer asked if Hogan planned to leave the top of his ballot blank, Hogan nodded and seemed to say, “Yes.”

This hardly shouts, “Follow me, I’m a leader.” Instead, his admission makes him King Waffle, a hero of indecision.

There’s enough to give reasonable voters pause in this election. Sure.

Harris was anointed by leading Democrats after President Joe Biden crashed his reelection bid with a feeble debate performance. U.S. realpolitik support for Israel’s eye-for-an-eye wars is impossible to square with American values.

Trump threatens a purge of immigrants and retribution against enemies if he wins. He’s surrounded himself with a goon squad of people who plan to remake the government in their own image.

So, leaving the ballot blank fits right into “Waiting for Godot,” Samuel Beckett’s two-man play on the absurdity of life.

“Well? What do we do?” Vladimir says.

“Don’t let’s do anything,” answers Estragon. “It’s safer.”

Fear is part of this.

“I have actually canceled my voter registration due to being undecided and cannot find a candidate that I can relate to,” wrote one nonvoter, who’s so afraid of being ostracized he asked me not to use his name. “For me, the Second Amendment is a right I won’t allow to be altered. Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump have a track record of not supporting the Second Amendment.”

You can tie yourself in knots over what others think. I found plenty of people who doubted anyone sentient could remain unresolved.

“Both parties also have people in them where I try to have a decent debate and I’m immediately belittled for my opinions,” the not-to-vote guy wrote. “I have been called a ‘NAZI’ multiple times.”

Undecided voters have decided elections in the past, but usually when there were more than there are in 2024. When the undecideds finally spoke in 2016, they helped put Trump in the White House over the heavily favored Hillary Clinton.

Third parties can play a role for undecideds, too.

That’s where Jonathan Moore landed. When we started changing emails in early October, the teacher from Salisbury was undecided.

By the end of the month, he remained unimpressed with Harris but was unable to vote for Trump because of his plans to round up immigrants.

“I ended up voting for the Libertarian nominee,” he wrote. “As much as I want Trump out of office, Harris is not who I see being a good leader moving forward.“

Is it gender? Do men — and all of the undecided voters who explained their thinking were men — have a problem voting for women?

State Sen. Sarah Elfreth recently responded to a horrendous slur some jerk threw at her because she is a woman running for Congress. So, it’s there.

“Too many people — and especially too many women — face this kind of vitriol and disgusting language when they enter the arena and put their names on a ballot,” the Annapolis Democrat wrote on X.

But some voters who can’t choose between Harris and Trump said they would vote for Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, the Prince George’s County executive, over Hogan.

Is it race? No one said that, but it is a factor.

Gosnell, the voter from Oakland, planned to vote for Alsobrooks, who is Black. But citing statements by Harris I couldn’t verify, he believes the Democrat would work for Black and Hispanic Americans over white people if elected.

“Race doesn’t factor into my vote whatsoever,” he said. “However, comments she has made and policies passed by her administration [do].”

Failure to choose, of course, does not absolve anyone of the consequences of Tuesday’s election. To me, the choice is clear on Election Day.

You can’t stay out of this one. Refusing to decide is a decision.