I don't vote.

In My Humble Opinion
101

Essentially, what all of you want is for every registered voter to vote, right? Let’s call “ALL REGISTERED VOTERS” the POPULATION.

You would be happy if we were able to sample the entire POPULATION and determine the results of the election based on that.

That much you must agree with. That’s what you want.

Well, an election essentially samples that population. What we’re concerned about with catalyst’s request for a cite, and what is really the crux of the matter is whether it’s really a problem that people don’t vote.

Well, there are about 150,000,000 registered voters in the US. Let’s say there’s 50% voter turnout.

Well, that works out to a margin of error of about .00006%. And, that’s a high estimate (to anyone that cares, that’s 99% confidence using p = .5)

That margin of error is essentially the difference between what we saw from the “sample” (the people who actually voted) and what we can expect from the POPULATION (all of the actual voters). That’s the answer to your “cite?”. That’s what “margin of error” is. It answers the question, “how different is the sample from the overall population?”

That’s the kind of difference we could expect to see if the remaining 125,000,000 people voted. And you guys are worried about your one little vote. . .

That’s all in the framework of a national vote. On a local level, the margins of error are higher but YOUR EFFECT ON THEM still isn’t much.

That’s why the people who frame the issues, and run the campaigns are so vital. In that margin of error formula, there’s a variable that represents the number of people who support one side of the issue. THAT’S what they all focus on. . .convincing the POPULATION to move one way or the other so that on election day, that shows up when a sample hits the polls.

And that’s all I’m getting at. Come election day, voting doesn’t mean crap precisely because there’s enough people who don’t think like me.

Or, it could have been a few thousand more in the OTHER direction. But, what really would have happened is that it would have turned out the same.

If you follow what I said above, you see that what you’re hoping for is basically a pipe dream. “If only a few thousand people in Florida has voted differently”
Voted Differently?? Sure. Problem is. . .they wouldn’t have voted differently. They would have voted, basically, along the exact same lines.

Oh yeah, if a few more thousand people in “Liberal County” had VOTED, it could have been different, or if a couple thousand people in “Conservative County” actually voted differently (through some magic), it could have been different. But, that’s not what would have happened if you just got more people out to vote.

102

Trunk, please explain how votes cast qualifies as a scientific sample of the population as a whole. Does the issue of sample selection methods have any relevance to statisticians?

103

Some.

Even if that post isn’t a perfect statistical analysis of election day (but you know it’s close), you’ll recognize it as an attempt to quanitfy just how puny a vote is. Does that margin of error calculation perfectly capture it? No, but even if it’s off, you know it’s not off enough to alter the conclusion of that post.

Do we want to get REALLY technical and deal with convergence (and convergence rates) for variables that aren’t iid? Or will anyone who even knows what that means at least throw me a bone here, and recognize that the original margin of error calculations capture pretty well what is going on?

And further that, no, your vote really doesn’t matter.

104

Trunk: sure, we can consider voters a sample of the population of eligible voters. We can’t, however, consider it a random sample, thanks to self-selection/non-response bias. It is on the grounds that voters are not a random sample of eligible voters that I dispute your claim that voters accurately represent the views of all eligible voters.

105

Trunk:

First of all, not every election is Presidential. From your and Idle Thoughts posts, I get the impression that you don’t vote at all, not that you just avoid presidential elections. Maryland has a pretty important gubernatorial election coming up pitting the, IMO, odious Bobby “Haircut” Erlich against the relatively unobjectionable Martin O’Malley. As a D.C. resident I would give a tooth for the ability to vote for a senator or congressman.

Secondly, it’s simply not true that the voting population is a representative sample of the general U.S. population. It is well known that old people vote in heavy numbers and the youth don’t vote at all. This is why politicians will never mess with Social Security or any other age based entitlement, and why they can get good press bloviating about violent music, video games, movies etc. The portion of the population that plays Grand Theft auto doesn’t vote, the portion that is likely to think “Damn young people!” does. Politicians cater to the desires of their constituents: the elderly.

Yes, you’re right, people will vote as they vote. But what this has to do with the power of your vote is beyond me. Your argument is that individual votes don’t matter. The votes of the thousands (hundreds?) of Floridians who preferred Bush over Gore say otherwise.

106

Seriously, do you really believe this?

107

I know that it takes collective votes, however, I don’t believe that the absence of just my vote alone would cause any significant change that would effect them so much in the negative. Again, everyone else can vote for who they choose. I just choose not to vote at all.

Well, then we just disagree. shrug I don’t ever see my vote making the difference between people and friends living (as in, having life) or not, and nothing in the world is going to ever convince me of that. That’s like putting the entire world and fate of everyone in ONE person’s vote. I just can’t see it. Maybe I’m short sighted or narrow minded.

I doubt that too. No, not the fact that one vote could make all the difference in some cases, but in the vote for the president and various people in politics…when, if ever, has one vote made all the difference? Can you list any examples? Even with the time in Florida, it still came down to a couple 100 votes making the difference, maybe more than that. But when has the vote for president ever come down to one sole vote being the deciding factor? I frankly never see it happening. I mean, I COULD, I suppose anything is possible. But if I believed in that great of odds, I’d be playing the lottery right now (something else I don’t do).

I’m sorry, I just still don’t see the connection. You can say that that’s selfish of me then, and maybe, in that particular area, it is…but that does not make me a selfish or uncaring person in general–For others or my country–which is the implication I’m getting from some in this topic.

108

Firstly I’m new, Hello all.

I’m going to jump into this debate as it is some thing that I feel quite strongly about (apparently so do others). I’ll start by firmly putting myself in the “Yes I vote and you should to” camp.

I’m not sure exactly how you came about this realisation but to me it seems fairly easy to dismiss as rubbish when you consider that voter turnout increases with age and such a statement is essentially saying young people have the same opinions as old people. I realise that simplifies it somewhat but even so.

Cite: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voting/cps2004.html

No they won’t look you up but if your letter happens to concern a cause that is only championed by a certain demographic and that demographic has lower voter turnout then said congressman is less likely to care.

Any politician, when faced with a choice between helping voters (whom help him/her get re-elected) and helping those whom do not will take the former option.

Personally I think a good example of what can happen when even small numbers of individuals do not vote is what recently happened in the general election in New Zealand. The Green party missed on on having an extra seat in Parliament but about 1200 votes (considerably less than the population of my university) and had they one this extra seat politicians have postulated that the make up of Government might be different.

I would like to note the said “postulator” was from the co-leader of the Green party. I cannot provide a cite for that as it has since expired from the web so take that with a grain of salt. Needless to say the potential was there as all the talk before the election was of a Labour-Green agreement.

Cite:

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/484445/615985

I know Trunk has already said he picked a bad example but even so his attitude of “Me Me Me, Now Now NOW” still shines through. With attitude like this seemingly everywhere one wonders if we are better off if some don’t vote.

ps Apologies if my grammar is rubbish. I spell checked but can’t grammar check.

109

THAT, I never said.

That an election essentially samples the registered voters? Yes. Is it a statisticians wet dream of a sample? No. But, it’s still a sample, nonetheless.

110

It is, so the vast majority of people do vote. But I know of one or two people who’ve never voted, and they’ve never been fined (I think the penalty is $50, but won’t swear to it) or even received a stern letter about it. I think the Powers That Be figure that mostly everyone’s doing it so there’s no point getting worked up about the 0.0001% who don’t.

I’ve seen some weird arguments against compulsory voting, but when you’ve lived in a country that’s got it, it really doesn’t seem like that big a deal (Idle Thoughts was saying it was weird back on page 1 of the thread). You show up, grab a couple of bits of paper, mark them in some way that may or may not include a proper vote, drop them in a box and move on to the rest of your day. Sometimes there’s a sausage sizzle outside, and if you’re lucky one of the wacko religious or racist candidates show up frothing at the mouth, so that’s mildly amusing.

There’s enough political information floating around for people to be able to at least choose between the two major parties, it doesn’t take long, and it only happens once every 3 years for federal and same interval at the state level.

111

Sorry, didn’t realise I was bumping an older thread. Still, consider it confirmed that yep, Australia has compulsory voting.