Why vote?

[Dylan Page]

I personally think that voting as an individual is a waste of time. My individual vote means nothing amongst the sea of voters out there. Why vote if I have effectively 0 impact.

[tenta]

Your one vote won't do anything to change the outcome of the election

"but if every Bernie supporter didn't vote then he'd lose" But this isn't the case, they will vote, so why should someone vote?

Edited January 25, 2020 by tenta

[Rookie]

Your country uses the First-Past-The-Post system, so your voter apathy is understandable. 

Still, you'd be singing a different tune if you were born into a more impoverished country, or if you had a much more difficult upbringing. There are people in your country who are barely scraping by, homeless, in poverty and are constantly having their benefits cut by the current administration. These people can't tolerate candidates who won't fight for their interests. 

We vote because it's the only power we have to influence the decisions our governments take while in office. 

[Hatfort]

There is the individual perspective, where you can think one vote doesn't make a difference, kind of true mathematically speaking, but there is the social perspective, where clearly a big number of votes do make a difference. The government chosen and the policies that they will implement will affect you as an individual in the end, so move your lazy ass, pick a side and vote. A more loving approach, would you mind moving your fucking lazy ass and voting? I'm just kidding, do whatever you feel...

Democracy has flaws and sometimes, most times, politicians chosen are not really good, look at Trump or Putin. But what alternative do you suggest? In dictatorships those who control the militars rule. In Kingdoms it's hereditary. Man, in democracies at least people have a say, don't underestimate that, it took us a long way to get here and a lot of good have come to us as individuals from that.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Hatfort

[Nahm]

@Dylan Page Lots of billionaires counting on that very perspective. 

[Ero]

@Dylan Page Conscious engagement in the political process is required for a stable and healthy leadership. There's a direct correlation between voters' ability and desire to voice their position and the state of the country. In my country - Bulgaria, there's a serious distrust bulgarians have towards the government, driven by this very same position. It's a significant part of the current problems we face.  The common phrase is "The politicians screwed our country up", yet this fundamentally is the case because of the active separation between people and government. The leadership should be a direct extension of the people's will, not a separate "entity". We have a long way to go to fix the problems we have, and it all starts from changing nationally the very conscious position you hold.

[Dylan Page]

@Nahm indeed, but is it wrong?

[Nahm]

@Dylan Page nothing.

[tenta]

1 hour ago, Nahm said:

@Dylan Page Lots of billionaires counting on that very perspective. 

See my first comment on the thread, they're not counting on one guy not voting, it would change the result if enough people didn't vote because of one vote not changing the election, but you don't have control over that and aren't changing the result with one vote

[Eph75]

Pretty obvious one would think. Your vote of course matters, it's 1/how-ever-many-millions-in-the-country towards what you want. If not getting what you want is a trigger, you're not for democracy. If you don't like the outcome, you can assume responsibility and do what you can to affect the outcome of the next election. It's not about the individual, the individual matter as a 1 of those millions but you as 1 ego a has zero value. However you can influence, family, friends, community and so on.. that is trying to change. Abstaining from voting IMO also invalidates whatever complaints one could have towards the result. 

Sadly, reality is that it might mean the one election of several "not good" alternatives, but voting for the lesser of the two evils is still the better personal choise. If one is closer or moving towards the outcome one is personally looking for, that's the best you can have at this very moment, and that vote matters, for you and whatever cause you are working towards.

If all is shit, get into politics and work for the change you want. 

Edited January 25, 2020 by Eph75

[Nahm]

@tenta Well me, you and him and we already got three.  

[Apparition of Jack]

@tenta  Some elections are won by about 50 or 60 votes. And these aren't just minor local elections, these can be state elections or even federal elections where a few states that are won by 50 or 60 votes are enough to flip the outcome.

Voting 100% matters. There has never been a time in a democratic system where voting doesn't matter. Besides, you declaring your intention to vote to friends and family will inspire some of them to vote too, which might inspire more to vote, and so on.

Think bigger picture. Think more conscious. Think more self-less. Voting matters.

[Leo Gura]

On 1/24/2020 at 10:04 PM, Dylan Page said:

My individual vote means nothing amongst the sea of voters out there. Why vote if I have effectively 0 impact.

By that silly logic you can also say:

"Why not murder a few people? There are 8 billion people on the planet. It will have effectively 0 impact."

"Why not rape a few people? There are 8 billion people on the planet. It will have effectively 0 impact."

"Why not burn down a few houses? There are billions houses on the planet. It will have effectively 0 impact."

"Why not shit in the street? It's only one shit out of billions. It will have effectively 0 impact."

Any one thing has effectively zero impact in the universe. And yet your actions still matter.

- - - - - -

In practice, many US elections end up being very close. Most US elections are with 1%-5%. So your vote is not really lost in a seas of millions of others. Every election cycle we have recounts somewhere because the vote difference is so small. Sometimes by a thousand or less votes.

Trump only won by about 70,000 votes in a few key areas.

And local elections are even closer. They usually have under 100,000 votes total. 1000 votes is enough to make the difference in a local election. So your vote counts a lot more than you think.

[Dylan Page]

@Leo Gura I mean, even in a sea of only 1000 people my vote still has pretty much no impact. I still don’t see your point. The reason a killer would justify murder isn’t because he thinks “eh 1 in 7 billion, this has effectively 0 impact”, it’s because he just fuckin loves it or something. However, with voting, the reason actually applies. I don’t think the logic actually does mean all of those other things that you listed.

[Hatfort]

@Dylan Page

It's never one vote that wins the election, though in some cases in some countries has happened that one vote has made one politician or other, but that's not the point.

What difference does it make if today you stay all day in bed being lazy, if the rest of the days of your life you act like you should? Well, nothing. But what if the next day you say the same? And the next? Then your life will start sucking. Think as voters as days in this analogy. If one voter thinks his vote does not matter and doesn't vote, won't change anything, but what if the next voter says the same? And the next? You see? Days in the year are not isolated, neither people from each other.

Your attitude is not the smart one, dude. A vote in a sea of votes matters too.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Hatfort

[Apparition of Jack]

@Dylan Page I made this graph to illustrate why voting is important:

Out of all the scenarios, the only one where not voting still benefits you is when they win regardless of your disengagement, but even that still has political ramifications as you can see. In all scenarios voting provides more advantages than not voting. Even voting when your candidate loses is still preferable to not voting when your candidate loses.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Apparition of Jack

[Zega]

Better question is why not vote? 

It's your right, it's easy, and even if you don't think it matters, thousands of other people voting with the same mindset is where the results happen. 

Now you could get trivial with me and say you're voting for a third party or something but let's keep it simple for sake of argument. 

[Forestluv]

@Dylan Page To me, you are seeing this very individualistically. That you are separate from everything around you - your vote is only a single vote among millions of votes “out there”.

Another way to look at it is that we are all interconnected as a whole. Your “inside” thoughts, feelings and behaviors are connected to all things “outside of you”. We are all neurotransmitters to each other. For example, your energy, thoughts and feelings are not separate from your environment. Your thoughts about how your vote is worthless is inter-connected to the life around you and influences how you interact with others. . . Perhaps by expressing views that one vote is worthless, you have influenced others. Perhaps a few people reading this thread were ambivalent about voting and then thought “yea, my vote doesn’t matter. I’m not going to vote”. Your one vote just influenced four votes. . . . Leo created a video series on political engagement and a new political sub forum that is engaging people in politics. Has recently written a blog post encouraging people to register to vote for the upcoming primaries. Taken together, do you think Leo only has 1 vote. In the literal sense, yes - He is a separate individual person that only gets to fill out one voting form. Yet in an inter-connected holistic sense, he has expanded well more than one vote.

I can contract into a mindset that I am a separate, isolated individual and my vote doesn’t matter. Or I can get inter-connected and engaged. This is how progress occurs at the social level. For example, I was talking with a guy that said he was against M4A, one reason he gave was he wanted to have choice and freedom with his health care. I asked him his source of health care and he said his employer. I told him that if he loses his job or quits, he loses his health care. He is dependent on his employer for his health care. With M4A you always have your health care. If you don’t like your job and want to leave, you always have your health care. This opens the door to new opportunities and choices. This is a freedom. . . . He said that he hadn’t thought of it like that and he likes that idea. . . In that moment, “my vote” was expanded a little bit on the social level. . . . Likewise, I have a friend that phone banked for Bernie last week. I asked her what it was like. I then asked her if we could phone bank for Bernie together next time. . . “Her vote” was just expanded a bit. . . We are all interconnected. 

[Hatfort]

Yeah, that was a good point above. You are not just not voting, you are also suggesting in this forum and maybe in other places that voting doesn't matter and maybe influencing other people not to do it. Maybe those will say and do the same in more places and spread your message around. So does it matter or not? You tell us.