copernicus

I don't agree with this argument. The process is not going to change because we do or don't vote. It is not a rational decision to decline to vote just because you think that the vote doesn't give you much power. Nobody's individual vote has any power. It is always just a drop in the bucket. The aggregate of votes is what makes for change in one direction or another. Those who opt out of voting only contribute to their drop of power to the bucket that wins the election. Nothing is to be gained by refusing to vote. Why do so many people fail to grasp that point? Voting is not about individual power. :banghead:

Other than that, I agree with all the arguments that we need election reform, and we need it badly. It's just that we will never get reform unless people join voting blocs that demand it. In this case, if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.

Dr. Retard

Actually, with winner-take-all systems, it's not even a drop in the bucket. An individual vote doesn't affect who wins at all. Not even incrementally -- not even a drop in the bucket. It does incrementally affect the margin of victory, of course. But it's another question how much the margin of victory matters. In a proportional system, you're right, an individual vote incrementally affects the balance of political power.

copernicus

No, I think that you are just plain wrong. Votes are counted differently in the nonproportional winner-take-all systems such that those systems unfairly weight the votes of some citizens above the votes of others. That is, some drops are bigger than others. On the whole, the largest number of drops usually wins anyway, but I agree that all drops should be the same size, as the recent US presidential debacle showed.

John Hancock

http://www.tompaine.com/register/

meritocrat

Many people in Britain claim to state that but I don't fully understand. In the 1950's and 60's there was little difference between the parties (certainly in an economic sense). Why was there no voter apathy then?

emphryio

Surely you people have heard of instant runoff voting?

IRV would quickly get rid of the entrenched two party system. There would be ZERO wasted votes and voter apathy would largely disappear as people wouldn't have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

(IRV means if the candidate you vote for doesn't come in 1st or 2nd, your vote gets switched to your 2nd choice etc.)

Of course the dems and repubs like the entrenched two party sytem just fine.

Dr. Retard

How so? I honestly don't know what you're talking about, and maybe I'm just ignorant. The only way an individual vote could affect who wins is in the case of a tie; this is astronomically unlikely, and as 2000 showed, if it gets anything close to a tie, the matter is decided by lawyers and judges, not votes.

copernicus

First of all, let's distinguish between "affect who wins" and "determine who wins". If you have to believe that there will be a likely tie in order to vote, then I understand your defense of apathy. Secondly, you have narrowed the argument to just the presidential election, not elections in general. The US system of presidential election by electoral votes is a topic for another thread, and I don't really want to rant about it here. I'll just note that what the "lawyers and judges" decided was which votes to count, not who should be President. Their courtroom wrangling may have nullified some citizen votes improperly, but it was all about votes in the end. Since the President is not elected on the basis of a direct popular vote, Florida voters were able to cast more influential votes than voters in most other states.

You seem not to have been impressed by my argument that voting is all about aggregate power, not individual power. Modern voters seem to have forgotten what participatory democracy is all about. It is a tug of war between voting blocs, and it is about a broad range of issues. With hundreds of millions of voters, you cannot expect to be the one who actually determine who gets elected. You affect who gets elected, and you affect how that candidate behaves after assuming office. To expect something more is to expect far more power than you are entitled to.

Your failure to vote does count, as well. It counts as an endorsement of who other people decide to vote into office. Once that person has been elected, your opinion does not matter, because elected officials only care about the opinions of voter blocs. And you are in the bloc that doesn't affect the future.

Dr. Retard

I'm not even talking about the issue of whether to vote. So we're talking at cross-purposes.

I'm talking about whether an individual vote counts as "a drop in the bucket" -- has an incremental effect on who wins. I don't think the distinction between "affecting who wins" and "determining who wins" cuts any ice. Suppose you vote for A and the results are A 1000, B 5000. If you had voted for B: A 999, B 5001. If you had voted for C: A 999, B 5000, C 1. If you had not voted at all: A 999, B 5000, C 0. No matter what you do, B wins. So your vote doesn't affect who wins. You can run the same argument for every other individual voter. So an individual vote doesn't affect who wins. This is true, so long as there's not a tie-breaker situation.

I'm just trying to settle what exactly an individual vote does and doesn't accomplish. Whether to do it as a separate issue.

copernicus

"Voter Apathy" is the topic of the thread. You may have been talking about something else, and I'm sorry if I misconstrued your point.

I think that I got your point when you first made it. You still seem stuck with the perception that individual votes are supposed to make a big difference in who wins. That's what democracy is all about--your individual influence on an election. Maybe you don't accept that characterization of your argument, but that is the impression I get from reading it. What seems to have turned you off to voting is the realization that your influence on the outcome of an election is so miniscule that you feel powerless to affect it. I agree that the influence of your one vote is, in most cases, miniscule. So why vote? Do you vote? If you do, then I would be curious to hear why you even bother. If you don't, then I understand the reasoning that drives you not to vote.

Here is why I bother to vote. I believe that my vote not only affects the outcome (in a very minor way, I grant you), but that the margin of victory is extremely important in the aftermath of any election. I want my candidate to feel confident in his or her ability to govern, and a big margin means that my candidate will have more "political juice" to govern with. I want the other candidate, should he or she win, to feel less confident. A small margin of victory will reduce the influence of the "wrong" winning candidate. My individual power is all about how worried the candidate is to keep me (or my priorities) happy. I do not win or lose by who gets into office. I win or lose by whether or not my politics prevails. An election is only one means to achieve the ultimate goal. Another means is to keep pressure on politicians in office by writing letters and participating in political discussion groups on the internet.

Given the thread title, I think that we are ultimately interested in the issue of whether to vote at all. Unless citizens feel that there is a point to it, they will not vote. Your constant claim that voting doesn't "affect" an election is a powerful argument not to vote. I am trying to say that your interpretation of the point is wrong. You are looking for greater influence on the political process than you can reasonably expect. Strength lies in numbers, not the individual.

That's a very good question, but it is wrong to say that there was no apathy. There was less apathy. In the 60's, I had to take a compulsory civics class as part of my high school education. President Kennedy tried to inspire people to build a better future. He was constantly talking up the role of citizenship in making a positive difference. There was far less cynicism about government than there is now, and there were clear issues--civil rights, the war, freedom of speech--that people were struggling to resolve. Nowadays, the issues seem more complex, and our political leaders certainly don't inspire us with visions of the future. I also remember that back then the opinions of youth seemed to matter more. Politics was affected more by what was happening on college campuses. The older generation in this era (some of whom came out of the Kennedy era) have failed to inspire the younger generation. Nostra culpa.