# My vote doesn't matter? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 8, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830 "2017-09-08T18:33:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/21 "2017-09-08T21:55:02Z")
> [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](#): > > I’m absolutely not okay with it. The fact that those few people essentially set the candidates, or at least steer the primaries is not representative. Maybe they should rotate it like they do for hosting the Olympics. Yeah. I’d like to see it in Brazil next year, and maybe Norway after that! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/22 "2017-09-08T22:04:27Z")
> [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](#): > > In my opinion, it’s potentially both, and you could interchange New York or Illinois. In a popular vote situation, would you not agree that the urban population centers, which account for well over half of the US population, that a direct popular vote would heavily skew election results to the larger population centers which would very likely under-represent vast swaths of America? Sure, the vast swaths of America that are a constant drain on our society will be under-represented instead of over-represented. What a shame. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/23 "2017-09-08T22:07:57Z")
> [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](#): > > In my opinion, it’s potentially both, and you could interchange New York or Illinois. In a popular vote situation, would you not agree that the urban population centers, which account for well over half of the US population, that a direct popular vote would heavily skew election results to the larger population centers which would very likely under-represent vast swaths of America? If by “under-represented” you mean that their votes wouldn’t count for more than mine, yeah, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/24 "2017-09-08T22:16:08Z")
> [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](#): > > In my opinion, it’s potentially both, and you could interchange New York or Illinois. In a popular vote situation, would you not agree that the urban population centers, which account for well over half of the US population, that a direct popular vote would heavily skew election results to the larger population centers which would very likely under-represent vast swaths of America? No, I wouldn’t, because I don’t see how a one-person, one-vote system could possibly underrepresent anybody. It’s people who count, not acreage. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/25 "2017-09-08T22:21:39Z")
> [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](#): > > That’s what worries me sometimes when I hear about people who want to switch over to a straight popular vote. Candidates would spend most of their time in highly populous areas and “Fly Over” America would be largely ignored. I get the arguments for a popular vote, but I think the electoral system gives a good balance between higher and smaller population centers. Iowa only gets attention because of the primaries. In a popular vote system, I don’t think they would get a first, much less a second look. In this last election, the popular vote was pretty close up until California started reporting. That’s when it flipped, even though it was still a narrow difference in percentage points (less than 2% difference out of more than 160 million votes). To me, that’s extraordinarily close. California having control over a nationwide vote seems a bit silly and in my opinion would not represent our republic fairly. Just so we’re clear, California has more than 10% of the US population. Iowa has… about 1%. There are more people in Los Angeles than in Iowa. California _should_ get more influence and attention than Iowa (and don’t get me started about Wyoming). About ten times as much. It doesn’t get that, of course - in fact, if I’m voting for the senate, my vote is worth about ten times as much in Iowa as it is in California. If you want to complain about too much attention being given to California, consider splitting California up - LA could literally be its own state, and would just barely fall short of the top half in terms of population (the Greater LA Area would be the 5th-largest state, above Illinois and behind New York). The correct way to win an election in a democracy involves catering to the majority of the electorate. There’s really no good reason why certain states should get disproportionate representation. “They’re sparsely populated and not centers of American wealth, power, or culture” is in fact a very _bad_ reason. Indeed, if I had to name the _worst_ states to have disproportionate influence on US politics, it would be states with tiny populations, low population density, and virtually no influence on American culture. Flyover country, in other words. ---
**Author:** ![gatorslap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gatorslap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gatorslap)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/26 "2017-09-08T22:22:04Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Why do people keep saying that? No one won he popular vote. Hillary won a plurality of the popular vote, but didn’t break the 50% mark. In most races where the popular vote matters, you don’t “win” unless you win a majority. If no one wins a majority, there is usually a run-off. Even in the EC for president in the US, if no one wins a majority, it goes to the House. What are you talking about? You don’t need a majority in most races, in this country. There are some local exceptions, but most races for Congress, governor, or most statewide offices or state legislatures are first-past-the-post. California and Washington have blanket primaries that effectively result in requiring a majority, but that’s because there’s no other possibility. Aside from some municipalities at the local level only, only Louisiana regularly requires a run-off if nobody wins a majority. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/27 "2017-09-08T22:28:51Z")
Also, the US system is busted insofar as any vote that doesn’t go to the party that ultimately wins any given election is worthless. In a competitive district, this doesn’t _seem_ bad, because any given 10,000 votes might matter, but in a freebie district (which is _most districts_ thanks to gerrymandering), it turns voting into a complete sham. If I don’t support the party that’s regularly getting 75% of the vote, my vote is essentially _totally worthless_. This is not the case in a voting system that isn’t asinine. In Germany, unless your party is painfully fringe and can’t even get 5% of the vote, your vote counts. Your vote helps determine who gets how many seats. None of this winner-takes-all nonsense - if 60% say they want one party, and 40% say they want the other, you do _not_ end up with 100% of congressmen being from that one party, you end up with the 60-40 split. Which makes sense. Can you imagine how insane it would be for a country to vote in a contentious election, with hundreds of millions of votes coming down to a few tens of thousands in flyover country, and realizing that because the split was 50.1% to 49.9%, 100% of the political power goes to your opponents? Why, I can only imagine how insane people would get with a system that crazy. The US electoral system is a colossal shitshow and it is first and foremost through astounding luck that it didn’t collapse like a house of cards already more than once. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/28 "2017-09-08T22:29:44Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > The correct way to win an election in a democracy involves catering to the majority of the electorate. There’s really no good reason why certain states should get disproportionate representation. psst - it’s a republic. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/29 "2017-09-08T22:33:07Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > psst - it’s a republic. A stupid, outdated concept in an interconnected world that carries backbreaking baggage. I get that it _is_ a republic. I just figure if we’re already wishing for ponies, we could go full monty and make it work _right_. You know, like a sane democracy that doesn’t use the single worst voting system in any actual democracy and some fake democracies. Or if you have to hold on to that concept, could you implement it in a way that isn’t retarded, and split California, Texas, New York, and Florida into multiple states? And also, Wyoming personally offends me. Wyoming? Fucking _Wyoming_? What even _is_ in Wyoming? How the hell do they get the same number of senators as a state with four (going on five, c’mon Fresno) cities that each hold more people?! ---
**Author:** ![Zetetic\_Skeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zetetic_Skeptic)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/30 "2017-09-08T22:38:42Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Sure, the vast swaths of America that are a constant drain on our society will be under-represented instead of over-represented. What a shame. Except for the vast swaths, it sounds like you’re talking about overpopulated, crime ridden areas littered with gangs and drugs. Found mostly of course in big cities. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Zetetic\_Skeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zetetic_Skeptic)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/31 "2017-09-08T22:42:02Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > If by “under-represented” you mean that their votes wouldn’t count for more than mine, yeah, I guess. You’re right. It’s hard to argue that one person’s vote should count more heavily than anyone else’s on an individual level. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/32 "2017-09-08T22:42:05Z")
I vote because I _know_ my vote counts. They add up you know. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/33 "2017-09-08T22:48:55Z")
Three factors to keep in mind. First, stronghold apathy works both ways. For every voter saying _“Why should I bother voting? I know the other party is going to win on this state.”_ there’s another voter saying _“Why do I need to vote? I know my party is going to win in this state.”_ So the final tally might end up closer than you expect. Second, today’s election isn’t the end of the process. Politicians are already going to be thinking about the next election. A politician that wins an election when 60% of the vote is going to behave differently than a politician that wins with 90% of the vote. That first politician is going to be thinking he can’t afford to piss off those other voters too much. Third, you need to keep the party presence alive. You don’t want the national party or potential candidates to write your state or district off as unwinnable. You want to show people that there’s a strong base of support that can be build upon. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/34 "2017-09-08T22:50:43Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > psst - it’s a republic. That explains why we don’t have a king. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/35 "2017-09-08T23:03:50Z")
> [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](#): > > In my opinion, it’s potentially both, and you could interchange New York or Illinois. In a popular vote situation, would you not agree that the urban population centers, which account for well over half of the US population, that a direct popular vote would heavily skew election results to the larger population centers which would very likely under-represent vast swaths of America? No it wouldn’t because you see, vast swaths of America don’t vote. People vote, and if the majority of the people vote a certain way, then that’s who should win the election. Just because you can look at a map and see vast areas of uninhabited land colored red doesn’t mean that’s the way the vote went. Dirt doesn’t vote. Giving extra electoral votes to states who are run so shabbily that no one wants to live there isn’t any kind of way to guarantee fair representation. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/36 "2017-09-08T23:13:02Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > … If I don’t support the party that’s regularly getting 75% of the vote, my vote is essentially _totally worthless_. This is not the case in a voting system that isn’t asinine. In Germany, unless your party is painfully fringe and can’t even get 5% of the vote, your vote counts. Your vote helps determine who gets how many seats. None of this winner-takes-all nonsense - if 60% say they want one party, and 40% say they want the other, you do _not_ end up with 100% of congressmen being from that one party, you end up with the 60-40 split. Which makes sense. … The German system _is_ eminently sane. Any sensible American must regard it with envy. The US system accords states far too much power-to-determine-representation at the national level. Let each state run _itself_–its state and local governments–as it pleases. But there’s no good reason for taking letting the voters of Iowa or Wyoming have such disproportionate power in Washington. Each American voter’s vote should have the same weight, regardless of state of residence. Amend that Constitution! ---
**Author:** ![Zetetic\_Skeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zetetic_Skeptic)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/37 "2017-09-08T23:24:04Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > The German system _is_ eminently sane. Any sensible American must regard it with envy. > > The US system accords states far too much power-to-determine-representation at the national level. Let each state run _itself_–its state and local governments–as it pleases. But there’s no good reason for taking letting the voters of Iowa or Wyoming have such disproportionate power in Washington. Each American voter’s vote should have the same weight, regardless of state of residence. > > Amend that Constitution! I really like this solution. Give the states more autonomy and shrink the federal government so that it only focuses on those responsibilities originally set out in the Constitution. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/38 "2017-09-08T23:46:45Z")
For a national (or even state) election, I don’t know of any example where a single vote made (or could have made) the difference. However, in local elections near me in the last 10 years, I know of at least one that was won by a single vote, and one that was a tie (it was settled by the flip of a coin, after a recount). In the first example, if I hadn’t voted, the winner would have been different. ---
**Author:** ![Zetetic\_Skeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zetetic_Skeptic)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/39 "2017-09-09T01:04:38Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > For a national (or even state) election, I don’t know of any example where a single vote made (or could have made) the difference. > > However, in local elections near me in the last 10 years, I know of at least one that was won by a single vote, and one that was a tie (it was settled by the flip of a coin, after a recount). In the first example, if I hadn’t voted, the winner would have been different. That’s really cool that one vote could make the difference! Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830/40 "2017-09-09T03:20:37Z")
> [@Zetetic\_Skeptic](#): > > That’s what worries me sometimes when I hear about people who want to switch over to a straight popular vote. Candidates would spend most of their time in highly populous areas and “Fly Over” America would be largely ignored. 😕 But that’s what happens now. The vast majority of states get no attention whatsoever. The electoral college concentrates attention on a handful of urban areas in heavily populated states like Florida and Pennsylvania. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-vote-doesnt-matter/795830.md?page=3)