# Voting is a waste of time. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 29, 2010, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681 "2010-12-29T03:41:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/21 "2010-12-29T16:10:12Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > Yeah, one vote doesn’t make a difference, but millions do. Voting is a group activity. That’s why we all do it on the same day. > > ‘I don’t vote; I’ll let everyone else deal with it’ … when you go to a baseball game do you not cheer because everyone else has it covered? > > People who vote are at least contributing to the system, for good or for bad. The special snowflakes who are above it all and don’t even bother to give it a go because it’s pointless, sound like bigger whiners than people who’s votes went to losing candidates if you ask me. Cheering happens because it’s fun. If everyone else cheers and I don’t, I don’t have any fun. Voting isn’t fun; it’s work. If everyone else votes and I don’t, then I don’t have to do any work. If I went to a ballgame and didn’t cheer because everyone else was already doing it, would you similarly hold it against me? ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/22 "2010-12-29T16:13:55Z")
You’d almost think that voting was such a horrible inconvenience that it required a reason to go through the ordeal of it. It takes all of 5 minutes during an average election, maybe 10 if they’re busy. And as for it not mattering? In Florida, November 2000, had a mere 2 left-leaning people per voting precinct, no more than that, shown up and registered their opinion on the matter instead of blowing it off as a waste of time, we would be talking about ex-President Gore right now. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/23 "2010-12-29T16:21:17Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Cheering happens because it’s fun. If everyone else cheers and I don’t, I don’t have any fun. Voting isn’t fun; it’s work. If everyone else votes and I don’t, then I don’t have to do any work. I don’t find voting work at all. I do find it fun; in fact, it’s one of the reasons I like to do it. If I had to break rocks in order to vote, I probably wouldn’t do it either. > [@](#): > > If I went to a ballgame and didn’t cheer because everyone else was already doing it, would you similarly hold it against me? Probably not, but I would wonder what the hell you were doing there in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Walmarticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Walmarticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walmarticus)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/24 "2010-12-29T17:54:20Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > Pointless; you won’t change the outcome, and your independent decision to vote or not vote won’t affect others much. The only benefit is a selfish one - to [signal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory) that you’re intelligent, well-informed, and patriotic. (Of course consipicuously refraining from voting can signal the first two as well.) Pretty much this. If people are going to insist that their countrymen be patriots (which I suppose isn’t an unreasonable demand), they should at least pick a signaling behavior that isn’t so easy to fake. As far as people IRL are concerned, I vote all the time. I’ve never volunteered, however. What if the mark of a patriot was how many cans he picked up on the side of the road? It would certainly reduce free-riding on democracy. ---
**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:** [December 29, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/25 "2010-12-29T17:59:14Z")
One reason some don’t vote is the choices seem pretty much the same, Republicrat or Demlican. So it would be just as good to toss a coin. And that’s what was done in a local election not long ago. Each candidate for town chairman got 153 votes. Recount – same. So they flipped a coin. Heads won. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/26 "2010-12-29T19:59:19Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > I don’t find voting work at all. I do find it fun; in fact, it’s one of the reasons I like to do it. Well, yeah, I get that. I think it’s fun for a lot of people. For others, it’s a hassle. What I don’t get is why the first group has to act smugly superior to the second group. And then, why they have to act as if they went to vote to “preserve democracy” or “to further the republic” or “to fulfill a civic duty”…it’s all bullshit. They vote because it’s fun to them, not because they’re super-patriotic or more intelligent and/or well-informed. It’s fun in the same way that buying a lottery ticket is fun. Sure, it’s not likely to change anything, but it’s only a small investment of resources and you get to rent a dream for a little while. That’s. All. It. Is. As for why I’m there at all? To continue the baseball analogy, because I was born in section 231, row G, seat 5 and it’d be a pain in the ass to move. > [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > You’d almost think that voting was such a horrible inconvenience that it required a reason to go through the ordeal of it. It takes all of 5 minutes during an average election, maybe 10 if they’re busy. And as for it not mattering? In Florida, November 2000, had a mere 2 left-leaning people per voting precinct, no more than that, shown up and registered their opinion on the matter instead of blowing it off as a waste of time, we would be talking about ex-President Gore right now. It’s not a “horrible” inconvenience, but it’s an inconvenience nonetheless. And even if we take it for granted that I hypothetically live in Flordia (I don’t), and that I’m a liberal (I’m not), and that I knew beforehand that it would be a close election (I didn’t), then I’d _still_ have insufficient power to effect a different outcome. I’d have to get a friend or two in all the other districts to vote the same way. Then I’d have to make sure that any republicans didn’t show up to cancel those two voters. How many “ifs” are you going to handwave away before you admit that one vote doesn’t matter? ---
**Author:** ![Walmarticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Walmarticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walmarticus)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/27 "2010-12-29T20:32:51Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > As for why I’m there at all? To continue the baseball analogy, because I was born in section 231, row G, seat 5 and it’d be a pain in the ass to move. Hey, if you don’t like 'merca then you can git out. (not voting obviously means you dislike America) > [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > You’d almost think that voting was such a horrible inconvenience that it required a reason to go through the ordeal of it. It’s mind blowing how smooth and convenient voting actually is, which should really illustrate how little I valued my vote this year to not even stand in a line for two minutes ---
**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:** [December 29, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/28 "2010-12-29T20:47:22Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > One reason some don’t vote is the choices seem pretty much the same, Republicrat or Demlican. And why are those two parties in power? Because people vote for them. So the people who don’t vote don’t get the political system they want and the people who do vote do get the political system they want. Yet somehow the lesson some people take away from this is that voting isn’t important. ---
**Author:** ![Gustav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/919ad9/32.png) [@Gustav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gustav)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/29 "2010-12-29T23:13:09Z")
As a non-american I can only imagine what it feels like, but being a lefty in the US must be incredibly demoralizing these days. I can totally understand why it would be hard to find the will to plod out to the voting booths. How many third-party votes would it take before it made a lick of actual difference? Around 60 million or so? And I imagine they would all have to be for the same party too. It really does seem pretty pointless… ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/30 "2010-12-29T23:42:25Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > One reason some don’t vote is the choices seem pretty much the same, Republicrat or Demlican. So it would be just as good to toss a coin. In 1968 George Wallace said there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two major candidates - Nixon and Humphrey. Do you think he was right? Do you think it is reasonable to have said that Obama and McCain were nearly identical. This makes sense only if one is an extremist - Wallace on the right, Nader on the left. For the rest of us, there is plenty of difference at the national level. Hell, there is even a lot of differences in positions in our City Council races. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/31 "2010-12-29T23:47:58Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > How many “ifs” are you going to handwave away before you admit that one vote doesn’t matter? Well, one may not, but how about 2? 10? 100? 1,000? How do you get to the number of votes that do matter if individuals don’t vote? Do you think it still doesn’t matter if all those on one side of an issue don’t choose to vote, since one vote makes no difference? Would that make a difference. Now, the reason I don’t usually vote in shareholder elections, unless I’m pissed off at management, is that there people have lots and lots of votes, and for the most part my couple of votes is truly not going to make a difference, because those with the shares have pretty much determined the outcome. That’s why corporate democracy is pretty much of a joke. But political democracy is a bit better, though no better than the people who do vote. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/32 "2010-12-29T23:50:01Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > You’d almost think that voting was such a horrible inconvenience that it required a reason to go through the ordeal of it. It takes all of 5 minutes during an average election, maybe 10 if they’re busy. And as for it not mattering? In Florida, November 2000, had a mere 2 left-leaning people per voting precinct, no more than that, shown up and registered their opinion on the matter instead of blowing it off as a waste of time, we would be talking about ex-President Gore right now. Hell yes. (Though my polling place is across the street, which makes it pretty easy.) I do give a pass about voting to any person who thinks the average member of the American public is significantly smarter and more knowledgeable than they are. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/33 "2010-12-29T23:52:14Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > Pointless; you won’t change the outcome, and your independent decision to vote or not vote won’t affect others much. The only benefit is a selfish one - to [signal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory) that you’re intelligent, well-informed, and patriotic. (Of course consipicuously refraining from voting can signal the first two as well.) Bullshit. I don’t vote for those reasons. I vote because doing so contributes to sustain the best system of government we’ve yet been able to come up with and it takes so little god damn effort. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/34 "2010-12-30T01:28:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Well, one may not, but how about 2? 10? 100? 1,000? How do you get to the number of votes that do matter if individuals don’t vote? Well how many votes are you going to give me? If you’re giving me 2, 10, 100, or 1000 votes, I just might change my tune. I’ve never said that voting was strictly a waste of time- that’s a strawman by the OP- I’ve said that _my_ voting is a waste of time **because all of you vote**. If I get to vote more than once, or you guys vote less, then it’s a different story. But it’s interesting that in order to back up your case, you have to reach outside of actual voting. You have to talk about campaigning (i.e. getting more than one vote). Why is that? Is it because you acknowledge that one and only one vote is useless? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So the people who don’t vote don’t get the political system they want and the people who do vote do get the political system they want. This, right here, is entirely wrong. The people who don’t vote can’t agree on what they want anyway. If they all got up and voted, then they’d just cancel each other out anyway. But even if they could mostly agree, then there’s _still_ no evidence that they’d get the political system they want. Furthermore, who’s to say that they didn’t get what they want despite not voting? How do you know they, as a whole, didn’t want Obama or Bush or Clinton? You’re just assuming 1) that their desires differ from the voters, and 2) they have the power to change it anyway. Secondly, only half of the voting population gets what they want. The other half voted in a futile effort to get what they want. So even if you _do_ go vote, you still might not be happy. And it’s hardly a coin flip- for the most part, we know months ahead of time which case it’ll be. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/35 "2010-12-30T01:32:20Z")
I should also mention that the “every little bit counts” argument is also nonsense. If you were talking about charity donations, where people give a dollar and end up raising millions, you’d be right. I’d be right there with you, donating my $1. But voting isn’t like that. If you give $1 and I give $1, you end up with $2. But if you vote and I vote, do you end up with 2 votes? No. I vote red. You vote blue. You end up, effectively, with zero votes. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/36 "2010-12-30T01:37:36Z")
Myself, I take voting very seriously and consider it a sacred duty. It really, really disheartened me when I missed the 1988 election due to my own screw-up. I was living in northern Thailand at the time and neglected to coordinate renewing my voter registration with the US Consulate in Chiang Mai. Time just slipped away, and it was election time before I knew it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/37 "2010-12-30T01:45:21Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Well how many votes are you going to give me? If you’re giving me 2, 10, 100, or 1000 votes, I just might change my tune. I’ve never said that voting was strictly a waste of time- that’s a strawman by the OP- I’ve said that _my_ voting is a waste of time **because all of you vote**. If I get to vote more than once, or you guys vote less, then it’s a different story. It isn’t a strawman, it’s a conceit. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/38 "2010-12-30T01:57:36Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > And it’s hardly a coin flip- for the most part, we know months ahead of time which case it’ll be. I’ll leave aside that argument; it mostly applies to Presidential and other federal races–where it applies at all. Do you feel the same way about races for your governor, your state representatives (singular if you live in Nebraska), your attorney general, secretary of state, auditor; your mayor, your city or county council members or commissioners, your district attorney, your tax collecter, your dogcatcher? The referendums and amendments and initiatives offered by your legislature or petitioned on the ballot by your _ahem_ fellow voters? Local tax districts, your school district, your firefighter district, your water district? Do none of them matter to you? All of them affect you. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/39 "2010-12-30T02:39:00Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And why are those two parties in power? Because people vote for them. So the people who don’t vote don’t get the political system they want and the people who do vote do get the political system they want. The government and private industry have been doing their best to crush any hint of independent political movement in this country for the last century. The people are completely atomized. The closest thing to a democratic movement in the last generation was, sadly enough, the Tea Partiers. And they were co-opted almost instantly. > [@](#): > > Yet somehow the lesson some people take away from this is that voting isn’t important. Theoretically, voting could be important. Except it would be the last step in a larger reworking of society from the bottom up. Voting for change is putting the cart before the horse to an almost ludicrous degree. As is, voting can only influence policy around the margins, and usually on fairly unimportant topics that don’t threaten power. > [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > In that thread, I said that I voted and was proud of it, stating that a politically apathetic population with low voter turnout would be a godsend to any government seeking to infringe any of our so-called rights. Not really. Any infringement of rights do not depend on voter turnout. They either do or don’t happen, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it under the current system. Especially since it wouldn’t just randomly happen. All sectors of power would be pushing for it. The deluge of propaganda would be too much. As we’ve already seen in reality. > [@](#): > > However, I think these people are undermining the core principles of a democracy, in that the government will never be truly representative of the people whilst people exist who don’t care to pick representatives that match their views - they’ll simply never be known and thus never accounted for in any branch of government. You seem to think we have a bottom up society and that we plan the policies of our government. We don’t. The vote that counted was held long ago and the people lost. If 99% of people stopped voting our society would continue on relatively unchanged. > [@Voyager](#): > > Do you think it is reasonable to have said that Obama and McCain were nearly identical. The differences were stark. For example, one of them was for expanding torture, surveillance, drone bombing, and for continuing his predecessor’s extremely aggressive foreign policy. He was backed by the financial and insurance sectors and was against universal healthcare. His opponent, on the other hand, was an old white guy with a pretty lady as VP. Of course, you just gotta vote for those city councils because damn man, the potholes. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681/40 "2010-12-30T02:50:47Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > The differences were stark. For example, one of them was for expanding torture, surveillance, drone bombing, and for continuing his predecessor’s extremely aggressive foreign policy. He was backed by the financial and insurance sectors and was against universal healthcare. His opponent, on the other hand, was an old white guy with a pretty lady as VP. Get real. I’m as disappointed (and frankly, angered) as the next person in many of Obama’s actions. But those actions would have been even worse under McCain, and what Obama and Congress _did_ accomplish in two years would never ever ever have happened under McCain. > [@](#): > > Of course, you just gotta vote for those city councils because damn man, the potholes. Fucking A. I’m not in Guantanamo, but I do have to drive on these piece of shit streets. It’s unclear to me why you think local government is unimportant. It has one hell of a lot more effect on your day-to-day life than the President does. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voting-is-a-waste-of-time/565681.md?page=3)