# Reasonable member of the electorate, or idiotic, entitled college student? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 1, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287 "2018-10-01T21:26:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/41 "2018-10-02T20:40:16Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Is this really better than not voting? It’s better than sitting in the car for half an hour arguing. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/42 "2018-10-02T21:06:02Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > It’s better than sitting in the car for half an hour arguing. Naah. As an atheist living amongst theists I’ve had many opportunities to come to the conclusion that letting other people think they have control over your life and beliefs, even if they’re mistaken, can and will backfire. Any dude who tells you it’s your job to cast a second vote for him is in the wrong, and deserves to be told so. At length. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/43 "2018-10-02T21:45:21Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Because it’s pretty clear from the rest of the article that his **actual** reasons for not voting were more serious and substantive. “Serious and substantive” as in “My side isn’t winning so I’m not gonna bother educating myself on the candidates and voting until we start winning someday”? This idiot apparently does not know (for example) that Texas has 11 Democratic congressmen and a slew of Democrats in the state legislature (not that it’s enough to counteract the Stupid in that body). Lazy and entitled probably fits the bill. \*though I should admit that back in 2000 I lived in Texas when it was even more a dead solid lock to vote GOP for President, and permitted myself the luxury of voting for a third party candidate rather than Bush or Gore, both of whom who I found to be repellent. At least I bothered to vote. \*\*I lived out in the sticks so parking wasn’t an issue. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/44 "2018-10-02T22:04:04Z")
Regardless of the author’s opinions, he closely represents about half of the voting age population in the US. A lot of people just don’t give a shit about civic responsibilities. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/45 "2018-10-03T01:15:33Z")
It seems to me that the solution to the problem in the OP’s lazy Millennial article is mail ballots. Why don’t they just have mail ballot everywhere like they do here in Oregon? When I grew up in a very tiny town in East Texas it really was a huge pain in the ass to go vote but we still did as a family. I haven’t thought about the difficulties of voting since I moved to Oregon and I can’t for the life of me understand why every state wouldn’t do this. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/46 "2018-10-03T04:38:11Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > “Serious and substantive” as in “My side isn’t winning so I’m not gonna bother educating myself on the candidates and voting until we start winning someday”? No, “ **more** serious and substantive” as in “more serious and substantive than merely not wanting to sacrifice a prime parking spot”. I didn’t say I thought the author’s more serious and substantive reasons for not voting were actually **good** reasons. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/47 "2018-10-03T14:16:31Z")
> [@Calatin](#): > > When I was a freshman in college, I remember coming home on break and my father (without warning) drove me to the polling place to vote. I was still registered where I was raised. > > Since I went to college halfway across the country (and the first few months of college are such a blur), I told him that I did not know enough about the local issues or candidates to feel comfortable casting my vote, as I might end up going against my interests. > > He told me that I should just vote how he wanted me to do so.\* > > In my life, I’ve probably had a handful of extremely serious arguments with my father, but that was one of them. I remember us sitting in the car in that parking lot, with me refusing to get out of the car, and him refusing to drive us home. It wasn’t until the intervention of my mother (where she chastised him for what he was trying to do [but I was also scolded for being disrespectful, in an effort to appease him]) that he finally relented, but to this day, it is somewhat of a sore subject. > > Just to pick everyone’s brain, does anyone feel differently about me not voting than the author of the article. This happened about 20 years ago, so while the internet was around, information was probably harder to gather to make an informed decision since I was halfway across the country, just starting a new chapter of my life. If I recall correctly, I don’t think I was even aware that my hometown / state was having an election at that time. > > \*Note: Our politics are fairly different from one another’s. Do you have to vote for every candidate? I thought you could choose to vote for some, but not all candidates/bond issues/propositions on the ballot without it being invalidated. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/48 "2018-10-03T14:43:42Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > It seems to me that the solution to the problem in the OP’s lazy Millennial article is mail ballots. Why don’t they just have mail ballot everywhere like they do here in Oregon? When I grew up in a very tiny town in East Texas it really was a huge pain in the ass to go vote but we still did as a family. I haven’t thought about the difficulties of voting since I moved to Oregon and I can’t for the life of me understand why every state wouldn’t do this. Why should we expect people who are not motivated enough to drive to a polling place to be motivated enough to educate themselves on the issues? I find it surprising that people can look at the current state of governance and think the answer is more lazy and ignorant people voting. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/49 "2018-10-03T15:22:47Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Of course my vote is worthless, because I happen to reside somewhere that’s red as blood. Sigh… This is the Camel and Straw Fallacy. The owner of a camel was loading it with straw. One straw at a time. The camel easily bore the weight of the first straw, and the second, and the third. And the owner kept adding one more, again and again. After all, a single straw has so little weight, if the camel can hold this many straws, it could surely hold one more. And then, one straw became one straw too many, and the camel’s back was broken. Oh, how the owner cursed that final straw for breaking the camel’s back, that that one straw happened to be so heavy that the camel couldn’t bear it. But the wise neighbor sadly pointed out that each straw had the same weight; it was unfair to blame the final straw for the accumulated weight of all. Votes are like straws. When people fallaciously assume a vote is worthless unless it changes who wins an election, they are ignoring the tiny impact of each individual vote. Tiny is not zero–every vote is counted and counts. Now whether you want to make that tiny impact is up to you. But don’t conflate tiny with zero. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/50 "2018-10-03T18:09:36Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > I live in NJ, and my (liberal) vote isn’t worth the paper it’s (not) printed on, either. In the last presidential election, the chance my state was going Trump was about 0.1%, and everybody knew it from the day he secured the nomination. There was no point for either candidate to campaign here, at best Clinton would come here to fundraise so she could run off to an “Important” state to campaign for votes. My district is solidly Dem, and so are both Senators, given the current political atmosphere. I always vote, but I don’t kid myself that it matters this time around. Maybe someday, but not today. Not as true as you might think, my friend. New Jersey is tightening > **[Democrats Really Could Lose That New Jersey Senate Seat](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-really-could-lose-that-new-jersey-senate-seat/)** > > New Jersey has given America a lot of great things: juicy tomatoes every summer, some of the best reality shows known to mankind, and Bruce Springsteen’s beauti… We vote because shit happens and it might just matter. Humans are astonishingly bad at assessing risk. Especially in the abstract. But staying home got us GWB. Figuring it’s a lock got us Trump. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/51 "2018-10-03T18:54:28Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > This is the Camel and Straw Fallacy. The owner of a camel was loading it with straw. One straw at a time. The camel easily bore the weight of the first straw, and the second, and the third. And the owner kept adding one more, again and again. After all, a single straw has so little weight, if the camel can hold this many straws, it could surely hold one more. And then, one straw became one straw too many, and the camel’s back was broken. Oh, how the owner cursed that final straw for breaking the camel’s back, that that one straw happened to be so heavy that the camel couldn’t bear it. But the wise neighbor sadly pointed out that each straw had the same weight; it was unfair to blame the final straw for the accumulated weight of all. > > Votes are like straws. When people fallaciously assume a vote is worthless unless it changes who wins an election, they are ignoring the tiny impact of each individual vote. Tiny is not zero–every vote is counted and counts. > > Now whether you want to make that tiny impact is up to you. But don’t conflate tiny with zero. Again, that’s not the logic in play here. It’s quite simple: If you happened to know what everyone else was going to vote, precisely, down to the last man, then you could know with absolute certainty whether your vote was going to change the results if included/excluded. It’s just math at that point. Contrariwise if you had no idea whatsoever how anybody else will vote then you have no basis whatsoever for assuming that your vote isn’t important in determining the outcome. The reality is of course somewhere in between. We can’t be _certain_ how people will vote, but we’re justified in feeling we have at least a vague notion of the general sentiments of the aggregate. For example, If the polling were to tell you that the vote would go 70/30 in favor of the republican with a five point margin of error and 99% certainty, then that means you have an extremely good mathematical basis to believe that the result will be the same whether or not you vote. It’s not a camel/straw fallacy - if _none_ of the liberals had voted the result would be the same. All the liberal votes are equally important - and in that specific scenario the level of importance they all share is that they’re all worthless - mathematically speaking. This all goes out the window if you can’t reasonably presume that the victory is a lock. And it’s worth noting that it’s certainly possible to be wrong about that - hence Trump. People in areas where the race was up in the air thought it was a lock and acted accordingly. Idaho wasn’t one of those places, though; we were the republican’s even if the republican in question had been a potted plant. (Planty for president in 2020, by the way. Can’t be worse than Trump.) One could argue that given the fact that no person with morals could possibly vote for any republican that this would turn Idaho into a swing state, forcing enough republican voters to stay home to make a Democratic win a possibility. One could argue this, but I wouldn’t believe them. I’m still quite certain that whether I vote or not, the pile of straws won’t break the camel’s back, at least not in Idaho. We’ll see though. (As I noted, I do plan to vote - just not because I think it will help. It’s more because I’m willing do stupid, pointless things just to shut people up.) ---
**Author:** ![Calatin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/439d5e/32.png) [@Calatin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calatin)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/52 "2018-10-03T20:26:41Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Do you have to vote for every candidate? I thought you could choose to vote for some, but not all candidates/bond issues/propositions on the ballot without it being invalidated. I was pretty much wholly unaware of the issues / candidates. Some had name recognition, but I couldn’t tell you what the majority of their positions were (outside of generalizing the stances of Democrats and Republicans). I honestly was surprised to know that an election was even happening during my visit home. Also, I’ve never been a straight-party voter. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/53 "2018-10-03T23:07:00Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Again, that’s not the logic in play here. > > It’s quite simple: If you happened to know what everyone else was going to vote, precisely, down to the last man, then you could know with absolute certainty whether your vote was going to change the results if included/excluded. It’s just math at that point. Contrariwise if you had no idea whatsoever how anybody else will vote then you have no basis whatsoever for assuming that your vote isn’t important in determining the outcome. I think you misunderstand the moral of the story. The point is that looking at whether or not the camel still stands is ignoring the effect of each piece of straw. That is, if a million people vote, each voter has a 0.000001% impact, not zero. Perhaps you don’t value that tiny difference, but you should recognize it’s there. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/54 "2018-10-03T23:19:24Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > I think you misunderstand the moral of the story. The point is that looking at whether or not the camel still stands is ignoring the effect of each piece of straw. That is, if a million people vote, each voter has a 0.000001% impact, not zero. > > Perhaps you don’t value that tiny difference, but you should recognize it’s there. I get the moral of the story. It’s just talking about something that doesn’t matter. Every vote cast contributes to the result. But not all votes _impact_ the result. It’s sort of like how if you and somebody are playing for “best two out of three”, and the first two games are won by the same person, you don’t play the third game at all - because it doesn’t _matter_. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/55 "2018-10-03T23:26:36Z")
> [@Calatin](#): > > Just to pick everyone’s brain, does anyone feel differently about me not voting than the author of the article. The article in the OP is blocked for me because I’m in the UK. Your choice was made because you knew neither the issues nor the candidates. You could not make an informed choice. In return, let me ask you. I used to work in local government. I knew the issues and the candidates better than most. I elected to not vote in local government elections because I felt it was a conflict of interest and it could make things difficult if it got out that I voted one way or the other. What do you think of that? ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/56 "2018-10-03T23:27:25Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I get the moral of the story. It’s just talking about something that doesn’t matter. > > Every vote cast contributes to the result. But not all votes _impact_ the result. > > It’s sort of like how if you and somebody are playing for “best two out of three”, and the first two games are won by the same person, you don’t play the third game at all - because it doesn’t _matter_. They do impact the result, and it does matter. 80.0000 to 20.0000% is different than 79.9999 to 20.0001%. Tiny is not zero. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/57 "2018-10-03T23:44:48Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > They do impact the result, and it does matter. 80.0000 to 20.0000% is different than 79.9999 to 20.0001%. Tiny is not zero. We’re talking about an election here, so let me translate your post into election results. ‘They do impact the result, and it does matter. your guy losing is different than your guy losing. Tiny is not zero.’ ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/58 "2018-10-04T00:23:09Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > We’re talking about an election here, so let me translate your post into election results. > > ‘They do impact the result, and it does matter. your guy losing is different than your guy losing. Tiny is not zero.’ And that is exactly the Camel and Straw fallacy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/59 "2018-10-04T00:26:21Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Why should we expect people who are not motivated enough to drive to a polling place to be motivated enough to educate themselves on the issues? > I find it surprising that people can look at the current state of governance and think the answer is more lazy and ignorant people voting. That’s not exactly how it works. What they do about two weeks before the ballot comes in the mail as they send you a big book. It has a general description of everything that is on the ballot and every candidates on the ballot and it also has an essay from both the candidate or the candidates representative from each cider issue in the book as well. It’s really pretty easy. I would say that I’m way more informed of a voter here than I ever was when I lived in the south. I had no idea what any of the referendums were or any sort of statements from some Rando School Board guy. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287/60 "2018-10-04T09:58:56Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > … university students … consistently and almost unanimously find themselves to be much further left and much less authoritarian than the major Canadian political parties … For many, not voting is an expression of that fact, and means they are not morally culpable when the government does something loathsome. There are some problems with this logic, but it is much sounder than labeling them apathetic might be. I don’t want to encourage non-voting, but [George Carlin agrees with their decision not to vote.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasonable-member-of-the-electorate-or-idiotic-entitled-college-student/822287.md?page=4)