Any individual’s vote is basically meaningless. No matter who you vote for you are basically throwing it away. There is almost no possibility of an individual affecting the outcome of the presidential election. So why does anyone care about throwing his vote away on a third party? I do not understand why any person would say I refuse to throw my vote away on somebody that has no chance to win when they will just throw their vote away on someone that does have a chance to win. But the key fact is his is almost totally meaningless to outcome.
I’m tired of hearing people say that one vote doesn’t matter. Whether that’s true or not is beside the point. When people say “don’t throw your vote away”, they are saying it to thousands of voters, not just one. So if thousands of people “throw their votes away”, don’t you agree that it could certainly have a significant impact on the outcome of an election?
I don’t vote based upon who I expect to win. I vote for whom I want based upon my own analysis and expectations. If my candidate loses, well so what? I performed my democratic, nay my personal duty and voted on my own agenda.
If my candidate wins, then obviously that’s a good feeling and perhaps others feel the same as I do about issues.
I don’t care if one vote doesn’t matter. I care that I performed my own due diligence and voted for the candidate whom I wanted. I will never vote based upon popular opinion. I will vote my mind and maintain a clear conscience.
Same as littering. My gum wrapper doesn’t really make my city any messier. But if everyone thought it was okay to litter, then things would suck.
I really can’t believe the incredible selfishness of those who argue that their vote doesn’t count. Of course your vote counts: it counts the same as everyone else’s. Is that so hard to understand? I see folks who make that claim as thinking that they ought to be allowed to be the deciding vote in an election, or that voting is useless if they don’t get their way. I find that attitude to be destructive to anyone who has to live near such a crass individualist, in which the only responsibilities one has is to the instant gratification of one’s child-like whims.
That’s partly why it is slightly ironic to me that the apocryphical economists in the linked op-ed are completely oblivious to the real benefits of voting to socio-political benefits, and yet are compelled to do so for petty marital comity.
If you buy into that reasoning, then there’s basically no point in voting at all. People who do vote clearly don’t buy into that reasoning when making the decision to vote. So why would they buy into it when deciding who to vote for?
When I have voted for an independent candidate, I did so in the nearly sure knowledge that my second choice would eventually win the election, and in all but one case that was, in fact, the outcome. In that one case, 2nd choice still took my state, so didn’t miss my vote.
By “wasting” my vote on a second tier candidate I advanced the cause of third party viability, and reduced the appearance of a voter mandate on issues where I didn’t agree with the winning candidate even though, overall, he sucked a bit less than the other guy.
This election - people are deciding to get up in vote in droves, people that normally would not have done so. The younger populations - the people who feel they ahve a voice are voting. The rationale of the OP is silly.
It’s been proved wrong already this election. Look at Obama’s ratings. It’s obviously because people don’t think their vote counts :rolleyes:
Voting for a third party candidate is NOT throwing your vote away, and I have a hard time understanding why so many people use this expression.
I voted for Kerry in 2004, not because I liked him or wanted him for president but because I was scared that W would get reelected. I felt awful about it the next morning, and to this day I feel like I threw my vote away BY voting for a democrat who I didn’t care for, when I could have put it towards a 3rd party candidate (ANY of them) who won’t win, but still need extra votes to make their presence more noticable. I hate the two party system, and hope to live long enough to see a 3 or more candidate election where all of them have a realistic chance of winning. The only way this will ever happen is if 3rd parties start getting more than 5% of the vote. This is why voting for a third party is not only NOT throwing it away, but its making more of a difference than a mainstream vote ever will.
There is value to voting for a third-party candidate, even if he has no chance at all of winning. If, say, 5% of voters support John Smith of the Meadow Party, then the other two parties will take notice, that there are a significant number of voters out there who strongly support the platform of that party, and that if they incorporate elements of it into their own platform, they could potentially win those voters over to their own party. Even if the meadow candidate never gets elected, the meadow voters are still influencing the political scene, and shifting it to a more meadow-friendly position.