Dr. Retard

First, I wasn't trying to be peevish about the topic of discussion. I understand the title of the thread. I was just trying to take it a step back, and so I wanted to clear up what exactly I was arguing.

So it looks like we agree that an individual vote doesn't affect who wins. The reason I argue the point is that so many people seem to harbor illusions about this simple fact. They claim that an individual vote does affect who wins. Just as an example, they often appeal to this claim in arguing against voting for non-contender candidates ("throwing your vote away"). Since this claim is false, and many people make it, I'm just baffled by it, and I try to point out that it's false whenever I can.

As for myself, I've only voted once (my only opportunity so far) and I did it because I got a real kick out of it. I voted for all sorts of crazy candidates: Meowth, Peter Venkman, Matthew Lesko, etc.

I'm undecided as to whether there's any good reason to vote (other than getting a kick out of it). I think the most promising line of argument appeals to rules of collective action -- we have reason to follow rules that, if they secured universal allegiance, would produce good results. But this gets really complicated real quick, and I doubt it will yield any strong imperative to vote.

In any case, I think the case for voting is not helped by pretending that an individual vote affects who wins. It simply doesn't. Voting will have to find its intellectual support elsewhere.



I grant that the vote incrementally affects the margin of victory. I granted that from the beginning. (It doesn't affect the outcome, though, not if by "affect the outcome" you mean "affect who wins"). And perhaps margins of victory strongly influence the balance of political power in the country. So your reason to vote has to be on par with that level of influence, reduced in accordance with how paltry your incremental effect is, and somehow tempered again by the likelihood of mistakes in election reports (there's of course a margin of error in voting records). At the end of the day, I doubt that your vote will have more than a negligible effect on the balance of political power. I wouldn't be surprised if your car's exhaust fumes on the way to the voting booth counterweight any positive influence of your vote.

I think your suggestions about alternative political action are relevant also. Given the negligible effect of your vote, other political action is probably a much more positive influence on society (assuming that your politics are right!). In which case, people should spend less time encouraging each other to vote, and more time encouraging each other to engage in other political action.

copernicus

No, I disagree. Perhaps my argument is too subtle, but I am saying that it does affect who wins. The aggregate vote, of which my vote is a small part, actually determines who wins. In reality though, the far more important effect is on the power of the winner to govern.

BTW, I apologize for forgetting that you were looking at this from the perspective of the Czech experience (and not paying attention to your profile information), and I don't want to make this just about American issues.

In the American context--a two-party system--it can be worse than "throwing your vote away". If you would have been otherwise inclined to vote for one of the two major-party candidates, then voting for a non-contender is actually throwing your influence to the candidate that you would least like to win. Hence, many of us on the "left" side of the political spectrum continue to be angry and resentful at Ralph Nader for his influence on the extremely close presidential election.

I wish that we did have emphyrio's "runoff" elections, but that is not even being discussed seriously in our system. (We have runoffs under very rare circumstances.) If you have a parliamentary system, then voting for minority candidates may actually increase your political influence and make more sense than it does here. If your party becomes crucial to a governing coalition, then political decisions can become distorted by the need to keep the coalition together. Take, for example, the tremendous influence that minority parties have on Israeli politics.

I still disagree with your phrase "does not affect". It just means that your vote is 1 in thousands or millions (depending on the voter pool). The individual effect is minimal, but it is still real. Taken as part of an aggregate of voters (lots of individual decisions), it has an enormous impact. More importantly, the statistical numbers have a very concrete effect on how well the winners can change government policies. If your candidate's election had a weak margin, then his or her fellow representatives are able to put more pressure on your representative to modify positions on important issues. Your representative speaks with a weaker voice. (In the case of my Congresswoman, I would prefer her to speak with a weaker voice, which is why I always cast a "futile" vote against her re-election.)

(BTW, I prefer the word "aggregate" to "incremental". The latter implies gradual change over time. The former implies a summation effect, which is what I am talking about.) I am arguing that a single vote affects the outcome. Not only does it represent an influence on who wins, but it affects even more strongly how that win translates into political influence during tenure in office.

Just as pollution controls on cars affect your health, voting affects your influence on the body politic. Take the controls off, and no single car exhaust will kill you. The aggregate of exhaust fumes is what will kill you. Hence, pollution controls not only work, but they are necessary. You are the car owner who curses and complains because you are forced to pay for pollution controls on a car whose tiny little exhaust threatens nobody's health.

Again, I disagree. Political action is all about forming and growing blocs of voters. Without the vote, your political action groups would be far less effective. Voting is key to the power of the individual. Without it, you really have much less ability to influence the outside world. You are like somebody who says that money is unimportant because it is only the things that money buys that interest you. I agree with the sentiment, but the problem is that you can't get those things without the money to buy them.

ohwilleke

I agree that an important reason that people don't vote is that for the vast majority of people it doesn't matter if they vote or not because the outcome of the election is largely a foregone conclusion.

Incumbents are re-elected to Congress about 98.5% of the time. Even so called "open" seats, are often in districts that lean heavily democratic or heavily republican. There are occassional elections involving open seats which are competitive (e.g. the newly created 7th Congressional District in Colorado, which was won by the Republican by 121 votes where voter registration is equally divided between Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters).

This is not some conspiracy, it just flows from a handful of written and unwritten rules about our political system. First, there is an unwritten rule that you don't challenge an incumbent member of your own party in a primary (with narrow exceptions for extreme malfeasance), which party members enforce in primary elections against those who violate the rule. Second, most elected officials run from single member districts. Third, most single member districts lean towards one political party or another. But them together, and you have a powerful strangle hold on the status quo.

Unless you live in a truly competitive district, it often doestn't make any rational sense to vote.

copernicus

I gave my rational reason, ohwilleke. It is that margin of victory affects the behavior of politicians. If your favorite candidate loses, then you usually want to do all you can to diminish the political influence of the new representative. All votes count for something, and so do non-votes. It is just that those who fail to vote endorse the winner by default, even if they don't intend their non-vote to be interpreted that way.

paul30

Both major parties are owned and operated by large corporate donors who want laws passed in their favor and want taxpayers to pony up for the things they need like roads and bridges and water and power and the military which is their enforcement arm.

Politics will not change until private (largely corporate) money is taken out of it.

Dr. Retard

[QUOTE]Originally posted by copernicus

Quote:

BTW, I apologize for forgetting that you were looking at this from the perspective of the Czech experience (and not paying attention to your profile information), and I don't want to make this just about American issues.

So, first, sorry to disappoint, but I'm just some American teaching English here for a year!

Quote:

No, I disagree. Perhaps my argument is too subtle, but I am saying that it does affect who wins. The aggregate vote, of which my vote is a small part, actually determines who wins. In reality though, the far more important effect is on the power of the winner to govern.

The aggregate vote determines who wins. Your vote is part of the aggregate vote. I agree so far. Your vote affects who wins? I don't think so. That doesn't follow.

So maybe we have a verbal dispute. When I say your vote doesn't affect who wins, I'm just saying that, no matter how you vote, the same candidate will win. I hope we agree about that, that no matter how you vote, the same candidate will win. That was the point of my little A, B, C example above. If we agree about that, then we agree, period. Because that's all I mean by "your vote doesn't affect who wins". Is this phrase the source of the disagreement?

Quote:

In the American context--a two-party system--it can be worse than "throwing your vote away". If you would have been otherwise inclined to vote for one of the two major-party candidates, then voting for a non-contender is actually throwing your influence to the candidate that you would least like to win. Hence, many of us on the "left" side of the political spectrum continue to be angry and resentful at Ralph Nader for his influence on the extremely close presidential election.

And I think anger at the individual voter is misplaced, because one's vote has no "influence" to speak of (other than that highly muffled "margin of victory" influence). I can understand being angry at Nader. His decision to run for president made a difference, unlike the individual decisions of his supporters.

Quote:

(BTW, I prefer the word "aggregate" to "incremental". The latter implies gradual change over time. The former implies a summation effect, which is what I am talking about.) I am arguing that a single vote affects the outcome. Not only does it represent an influence on who wins, but it affects even more strongly how that win translates into political influence during tenure in office.

I just used "incremental" to mean "a one-by-one addition"; I would've used "marginal", but we're already talking about "margins of victory", so I had to resort to the other jargon word.

When we talk about aggregates, I agree about the influence. When we talk about an individual vote, I disagree (for the reasons above).

Quote:

Just as pollution controls on cars affect your health, voting affects your influence on the body politic. Take the controls off, and no single car exhaust will kill you. The aggregate of exhaust fumes is what will kill you. Hence, pollution controls not only work, but they are necessary. You are the car owner who curses and complains because you are forced to pay for pollution controls on a car whose tiny little exhaust threatens nobody's health.

And I think there is a difference between pollution and voting. When I pollute, I only pollute a little bit. But I do make things worse. I have an incremental negative effect on the environment. My decision has an effect -- a small one.

When I vote, I do not affect who wins. That is, the same person wins, no matter how I vote. Even if I stay home, the same person wins. My voting decision is completely irrelevant to who wins. It has zero effect. (Here I'm assuming away the "margin of victory" effects, just for the sake of focus).

Quote:

Again, I disagree. Political action is all about forming and growing blocs of voters. Without the vote, your political action groups would be far less effective. Voting is key to the power of the individual. Without it, you really have much less ability to influence the outside world. You are like somebody who says that money is unimportant because it is only the things that money buys that interest you. I agree with the sentiment, but the problem is that you can't get those things without the money to buy them.

I'm not saying voting is unimportant. I'm just saying that there seem to be more effective ways to use your time. I would guess offhand that deciding to sign an online ACLU petition has more effect on the balance of political power in this country than deciding to vote. In which case, it's a little puzzling why people are so big on voting, and so mum on other forms of political action.

copernicus

And I also wanted to compliment you on your excellent English!

At one point you say: The aggregate vote determines who wins. Your vote is part of the aggregate vote. I agree so far. Your vote affects who wins? I don't think so. That doesn't follow.

At another point you say: When we talk about aggregates, I agree about the influence. When we talk about an individual vote, I disagree (for the reasons above).


I think that both of us should avoid getting too wrapped up in the subtle distinctions between "affects" vs. "influence" and "aggregate" vs. "incremental". The real issue here is perspective. You look at it from the perspective of the individual, and I look at it from the perspective of the group. I don't think that we have a disagreement of substance here. An individual vote makes no difference in and of itself because its net worth is "diluted" by the whole. Still, if no individual votes count, then why do we bother counting them at all? A mystery!

Yes, we do. I'm just saying that voting is a social act. It has no significance at all outside of the context of a group action. If you don't vote, and lots of others don't vote, then the election could turn out differently. That is the nature of the impact. You aren't voting in a vacuum.

I'm angry at the individual voters for misconstruing the importance of their votes--for seeing them as just a personal rather than social decision. I'm angry at Nader for influencing the aggregate vote by playing on that misperception of individual voters. He tried to reduce the act of voting to a mere personal decision. People were supposed to feel guiltless for casting their individual votes in a way that ultimately tipped the scales in favor of the wrong candidate.

The metaphor does not break down here. Pollution is an aggregate phenomenon, as is voting. You admit that your tiny little pollution has a small effect. You won't admit that your tiny little vote has any effect, even though you kind of see the "muffled" point about margins of error. I don't see how you make the distinction in a meaningful way.

This argument is completely fallacious. We aren't arguing about priorities over how someone should spend their time. Surely, the effort to go and cast a vote is negligable in comparison to those other activities. And voting is not mutually exclusive with those other activities. You are setting up a false dichotomy.

John Hancock

copernicus

Thank you I've always found it difficult to articulate the value of voting. This social action explanation is most helpful.

Martin Buber

admice

So stop arguing about it and start doing something. There are many organizations to get involved with. Do so. Here's some links based on my research.

My belief is that we must make taking back the media and election reform, as well as preserving CSS our top priorities or we have a MUCH more difficut task affecting any other legislation.

http://www.bettercampaigns.org/

http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/programs_dem.html
http://www.fairvote.org/pr/

http://www.nvri.org/resources/index.shtml
http://www.publicagenda.com/issues/f...mpaign_finance
http://www.publicampaign.org/index.html
http://www.cfpa.org/issues/governance/elections/
http://www.world-prosperity.org/politicalreform.htm

In addition, the League of Women Voters (which allows men) has reform as their national agenda.

Join a local group or start one in your state and get involved. spare 1-2 hours a week that you would spend discussing it here, and do something about it there.

Dr. Retard

So first, some nit-picking. This is flirting with the 'fallacy of division'. All the votes together affect who wins. Therefore, each individual vote affects who wins.

We agree that, no matter how an individual votes, the same candidate will win. This is all I ever meant by "an individual vote doesn't affect who wins."

We also agree that how an individual vote can affect the balance of political power. How? Via the effect of the margin of victory, which carries symbolic weight in reality. But perhaps we disagree about how big this effect is, as stems from an individual's vote. You wrote:

and

And I wrote:

So one source of disagreement might be the size of this effect (again, as stems from an individual's vote). However, your appeal to this effect seems to belie your animosity to 'noncontender votes' (like votes for Nader). After all, while voting for Gore has this margin of victory effect, so does voting for Nader. A vote for Nader alerts politicians to the existence of a sector of voters who, for whatever reason, chose to vote for Nader. This will affect the balance of political power.

So I don't see how you can consistently (i) attack Naderites for stealing away Gore's victory, and (ii) acknowledge that an individual's vote doesn't affect who wins, that the only effects are via the margin of victory. No single Naderite did a thing to bring about Gore's defeat. Each Naderite, however, did contribute (ever so slightly) to a public and political recognition that there are x% of Naderites -- probably interpreted to mean x% of left-liberals who are dissatisfied with the Democratic Party. So what did the Naderite do wrong?

The only answer I can see is the one I gave earlier:

And you seem to agree. My guess is that this is what you are after when you write:

and

But, on my best interpretation, these seem to be moral claims, highly reminiscient of Kant even. People ought to regard themselves, in their actions, as legislators, dictating rules for everyone else. The Naderites didn't live up to this requirement; otherwise, they would have followed the universally-willed maxim, "Vote for Gore, so that Bush won't win." This only makes sense if it's "universally-willed", since (after all) an individual's voting for Gore doesn't keep Bush from winning. It doesn't affect who wins at all.

One potential problem to avoid is a sort of 'voodoo' fallacy. This is where you think that your actions somehow dictate the actions of your peers. That, if you're a Naderite, and you decide to vote for Gore, then all the other Naderites will follow suit. You are, yourself, a sort of voodoo doll for everyone else, and they are puppets of your behavior. This is just false. If I, a Naderite, vote for Nader, this has zero effect on how everyone else votes. What does have an effect is when you convince people to vote for Nader, or you encourage a sort of 'team spirit' effect. But my vote doesn't affect anyone else's vote.

And finally... You wrote:

I never intended to cast them as mutually exclusive alternatives. Of course you can be a full-fledged political junkie and do it all. My point was that if an individual's performing one activity yields more social benefit than her performing a different activity, then (ceteris paribus) we ought to encourage the first one more. We can encourage them both, of course. But we should encourage the first one more.

And yet people are so gung-ho about voting and so mum about other forms of political activity. This seems totally out of proportion.