I am always surprised by how many of my fellow Americans are adamant about not voting. If any redditors do not vote on principle, could you please share your reasoning?

I realize that elections are an emotional topic and event. I respect keeping one's vote private. I empathize with people's irritation at the limitations of our election process, e.g., when all candidates for a given office seem poor. But I am always taken aback by how many of my associates forcefully assert that they never vote and will never vote. Further, with only one exception, these people refuse to discuss why they do not vote. The one exception is effectively an anarchist or, more properly, a libertarian socialist. The others...I doubt are coming from that ideology but universally refuse to share their reasoning.

Edit: I'd like to try to understand people's principles, and not debate them. Follow-up comments that tease-out the logic, values, and motivations of the people that never vote should help us to understand one another. Debating the merits of those principles, while satisfying for some, could suppress our collective learning opportunity by discouraging others.

Edit: I appreciate the comments. Please keep them coming; rational thought always strengthens my faith in humanity!

Summarizing my understanding of the reasons that you have shared so far:

1. The election process is a staged-fiction and participating in such a sham not only offends one's own sensibilities, but contributes to the deception of others.
2. The value of one's time and effort >> the impact of one's vote.
3. Not voting is a form of protest and this itself is form of civic action.
4. Voting when uninformed does more harm than not voting. If you further believe that you cannot possibly be informed because of hidden forces, information, etc., not voting ever is the best choice.
5. Pessimism / feeling of futility.
6. Physically moving one's self into the company of other like-minded individuals (town, society, country, etc.) is a more effective strategy for optimizing one's life than attempting to influence the group one currently lives amongst. Parallels changing jobs.
7. The positions of all of the candidates are so unrepresentative of some people's own views, they are in effect already disenfranchised. For instance, those who would naturally vote for "minor" parties ("minority party status" is a mathematical artifact of the American election system), completely different systems of government, etc., may feel this way.
8. Religious belief that Democracy is wrong or irrelevant.
9. The results of the election process don't affect some people's lives significantly, so not participating is a rational cost-benefit trade-off for them. They would contrast this with, for example, business owners who's lives might be directly affected the the winner of an election.
10. Loss of anonymity. Jury lists are often taken from voting records/registration. Voting establishes a tax home. Etc.

P.S. This topic is getting a lot of downvotes. Is mine a bad question? I don't get it.