Do candidates have to earn your vote?

I saw someone make an analogy I found helpful as a very left person who generally has realistic options that are more centrist in federal elections and for many statewide offices.  Think of candidates as subway lines.  You want to go to a particular location.  You can choose candidate A, which gets you to a point seven blocks from your location.  Or you can choose candidate B, who drops you two miles away.  You're walking in both cases, but how far you have to walk is meaningful.

I don't think of national and statewide candidates as having to earn my vote.  They are balancing a lot.  I do think local candidates should be doing more direct, personal constituent service, and, eg, I voted against an incumbent in an election last cycle because I'd been in touch with them about an issue that was important to me and I was unimpressed with both the substance and tone of how they handled it, but I did vote for a challenger with similar stated politics.  

I used to not vote if I didn’t have time to research each of the candidates because I felt that responsibility very strongly and that I hadn’t earned the right to vote, didn’t deserve to vote if I hadn’t done my duty. So sometimes I would only vote for the main positions and sometimes not at all.