Don’t sweat it. Stay at home. Your vote is worthless. Just forget about it and let us run everything for you.
… I swear, I’m moving out of this ass backwards country. 
Shame on you guys telling him not to vote because you disagree with his politics. That is sickeningly underhanded and against the concepts of democracy. You should be encouraging every person to vote, no matter their political outlook.
I used to think my vote wouldn’t make a difference… then 2000 came along.
I live in Palm Beach County.
You bet your ass I’m voting!!!
I don’t think I’d like too much the idea of living in a place where I didn’t have a say in the way my life and that of my family was governed. The rules of our society are created by our votes no matter what we may or may not think. We are society today, what we do today sets an example for our children, if we are so apathetic as to not care about our own future shouldn’t we at least do this one thing to try to shape the future for our children?
What will your lagacy be?
Here’s a clue, take two, they’re small: I put the issue in the starkest terms imaginable. He asked, flat out, if he should bother to vote at all because yadda yadda yadda natter natter natter. I decided to flatly answer “No, let us run the country.” or words to that effect. How does he respond to that? That will determine whether or not he was really ambiguous or merely looking for an excuse to not bother with his civic duty.
In college, I had an economics professor who kept explaining how voting wasn’t rational: the “cost” of voting didn’t equal the “benefit.”
However, I’d say voting, even in a guaranteed Bush state makes sense. Even if I knew who was going to win the state, I’d still vote. Why? Well, I’d like to keep the election close. Also, the national political parties will look at the results as well. Perhaps it might mean the state will get more attention in the next election. Perhaps the national party will put more effort into the next Senate or Gov. race than they would have.
I’m a Pubbie who lives in a solid blue state (my county went for Gore 2-1 in the last election) but I plan on voting when I’m 18. Why? Well, with voter turnout as it is, especially among the youth brackets (?): I get to speak for three to five people. Where else can you do that?
Besides, boosting the popular vote’s never wasted effort: see 2000.
There are still local politics, which you should get involved in. Nat’l politics are important; however, what happens at the local level has a significant and immediate impact on your quality of life.
Besides, you may be mistaken on your Red State prediction.
It is called a joke Zag, lighten-up a little will ya. Seriously though I don’t think that we should encourage anyone to vote. If someone dosen’t have the sense enough to assert themselves in our government then I don’t want them to vote. I especially do not want to encourage someone to vote who has no clue about the people/issues on which they will be voting. Informed people tend to vote more fequently and that is a good thing – I want the ignorant to stay at home.
In the upcoming Presidential election, it’s believed that there are some states that the Democrats are sure to win, some that the Republicans are sure to win, and some that are up for grabs. If you live one of the “uncertain outcome” states, your vote does count. Re the other states, can we be sure that the pundits are right in all cases? IMO, no. I’d say that even if your state is in one of the two “all sewn up” columns, if you have a preference, go out and vote for the guy you like better.
If you don’t much like either candidate, or if you are positive that your state is all sewn up by one of the Big Two, you have the opportunity to use your vote to send a message. Definitely a fun thing! One way to send a message is by voting for a minor party candidate. Want govt to get to work to end global warming? Want better environmental protections? Vote Green. Want marijuana to be legalized? Think goverment has become too powerful or too intrusive into pvt matters? Vote Libertarian. Think abortion should be completely illegal, no exceptions? Vote Right to Life? Etc. Alternatively, if you want to send an “a pox on both your houses” message, a write-in candidate is the way to go. Write in Donald Duck, for example.
That said, I am mystified that anyone could be indifferent as to who wins in 2004. Bush II strikes me as the most polarizing President of modern times. Is there anyone out there who isn’t polarized? I’m sufficiently polarized that I would have turned out to vote for the Dem, no matter which of them got the nomination. It’s one of those times, IMO, when one needs to vote against a candidate. I would think that, conversly, anyone who approves of Bush would be bound to feel strong antipathy toward even the least-left among the possible Dems.
Have you considered trading your vote? In 2000, there was a good deal of news about websites like nadertrader.com and the like where Gore supporters in strongly red or blue states would trade their votes with Nader supporters in swing states.
And this will accomplish exactly what? No percentage but no percentage of current libertarians voting libertarian could bring a favorable candidate into major office. (Ron Paul notwithstanding.) Seriously. It’s almost like people are mocking me by telling me I can “take part” in my own “governing”. I can’t complain if I don’t vote? It’s as simple as that, really? If I vote I’ve done everything I can to bring about my desired state of affairs such that then have a clear right to jeer the political scene?
No, it’s a tad bit more complicated. If I proselytize the libertarian line - if I think and act and set a libertarian example - then maybe, eventually, there’ll be enough libertarians to make a difference. Voting now would be stupid and a waste of time. I’d be taking part in a system whose mechanations will inevitably result in an outcome that makes the baby Jesus cry on the inside.
Sorry, but no. Good news is that Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, & State has been recently made available by the Mises Institute. I encourage anyone to read it.
I understand your frustration and I think that having a run-off in presidential elections would of course help make your Libertarian vote more worthwhile. However even in our present system I don’t think that a Libertarian (or Green Party, etc.) vote is “stupid and a waste of time.” Even if your preferred candidate dosen’t win the media does pay attention to the number of votes a thrid party candidate receives. If your thrid party candidate receives significantly more votes than they were expeted to receive then it will bring more mainstream media attention to their cause in general. And don’t fool yourself by saying that the media dosen’t matter. If you want more people to join your cause you must get your information out to as many people as possible. High numbers of votes for third party candidates may also have the side effect of causing the two big parties to modify thier platform to include the ideas proposed by those third parties.
You realize, of course, it wasn’t just Florida that had a razor-thin margin in the 2000 election, but also New Mexico and New Hampshire.
But let’s assume you live in a state where there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that your preferred candidate could win. Should you still vote?
Yes, because the presidential election isn’t the only thing on the ballot. Here in Missouri, we have a bunch of elected officials who’d like to balance the state budget by cutting programs for poor people. I’d like to express my opnionm about that.
In my local election next week, five towns are banding together to ask for a sales tax to improve a major road. They haven’t shown a plan, they can’t say for sure what “vision” they have for the road and they can’t say whether existing businesses along the road will be forced out. I’d like to have a say about that.
I’m sure that people who disagree with my opinions also would like to have their say on these issues. Good. Let’s all vote.
I suggested that one option is to vote for a minor party or write-in candidate as a means of sending a message. Cheese Monster replied:
Cheese Monster, I’m not suggesting that anyone vote for a minor party candidate (or for Donald Duck) with any expectation that he, she, or it will actually win. I’m suggesting that anyone who sees no point in voting for either of the two major party candidates can use his or her vote to send a message.
I don’t think that the only votes that matter are the ones cast for the winner. The ones cast for the losing major party candidate are important in that it matters by how big or small a margin the winner wins. The ones cast for minor party and write-in candidates matter too. Turning out to vote but not voting for the candidate of either of the Big Two Parties says “I don’t like the choices you two are offering me” – staying home does not say this. Staying home indicates that you just don’t care which one wins – perhaps because you think they’re about equally good, and either one would make a fine President.
Actually, your right to vote is independent of your right to complain. I like living in a country where I can exercise both, either, or neither at my discretion.
Beyond the “civic duty” and “people in other countries would love to be able to vote” reasons, in the narrow example described (ignoring local issues), the only quantifiable reason I can think of to vote is the infantesimle effect that your vote may have on those who analyze election results. Pretty convincing, no?
Suppose Kerry were to win the electoral college but lose the popular vote. Do you really want to listen to that for 4 years? 
But seriously, popular vote may not determine the outcome but IMHO it does have some consequence and can send a message. If you want Kerry to win, then you should want him to win with as clear a mandate as possible.
Sorry guys, I don’t have any comprehension how completely different the political scene would be if we had 75 or 100% voter turnout.
Please give me some concrete examples where the outcome would have been different if we had greater voter turnout, and follow it up with an explanation of how if they other guy had won, the political scene would have been completely different.
They run surveys where they poll 1500 people and the margin of error when extrapolating to the whole country is roughly 3%.
Pretty much every election we have, it wouldn’t make any difference whether 50% or 100% of the people voted.
Why is this so simple. There’s a lot of things we have the right to complain about that we had no hand in bringing about. I can complain there’s nothing good on TV even though I’m not a TV executive, don’t have a Neilsen rating box, and never answered a survey about it. I can complain the Yankees are too rich to give us fair competition even though I’m not in the players union or on the competition committee. And I can complain that Bush is war mongering jackass or that Clinton was a sexual harasser whether I voted or not.
Logically, the people who don’t have a right to complain are the people who voted for the guy who won. You voted for Bush in the last one – keep your mouth shut if you think he’s screwing up. You helped get him in there.
This is really quite a silly statement. It assumes that the choices available to a voter always represent a set of options from which that individual is happy to choose. It is perfectly reasonable for someone to decide that none of the available options represent his or her idea of reasonable government, and decide on that basis not to participate at all. Personally, i would never take this route, because i believe that in virtually every election there is one candidate or one party or one set of issues that better represents my views and my idea of a good society.
I grew up in a country where voting is compulsory, and where voter turnout has not been below 94% since World War II, and i firmly believe in the civic importance of voting. But to suggest that not voting is nothing more than laziness, and that abstention relieves you of your right to be concerned about the way society is run, is simplistic in the extreme, and fails to take into account the problems of the two-party domination that characterizes many functioning democracies.
All this complaining about “the man” doesn’t listen or “whatever happens in government means nothing to me because they don’t listen”, “all the government does is raise taxes and tries to bleed me dry”. “Why should I trust anything the government says.” For sanity sake then make a stand the only opinion poll the government cares about is the vote! If your not going to have your say when it is time to say something then don’t say anything! At all!! Ever!!! “The government doesn’t listen!” Yes they do every time you vote trends are set. These trends are used to see what the public is thinking it all makes a difference. The one thing to remember is that an election is the one and only time you get to have your say, so by not taking part you are really only fooling yourself. Yeah I’ll not vote that’ll teach 'em. Really? It doesn’t bother the people in power because by not voting your are in effect saying is “I like the way your government is screwing with me.” Is this what you mean? If not then vote! Answering a Fox opinion poll does not make a difference because the government cannot be changed by a Fox opinion poll. The election of a governing body is the choice of the people within a society. If the people wish to exercise their right not to vote then why do they complain about not having a say in how their country is being run when in fact they do have a say? This is your one and only time to speak about the direction your country is taking.
Sure not every single voice is going to be heard clearly, and the opinion of every individual is not going to be considered for debate. But at least have the say, a grain of sand doesn’t make a beach. Just like a single vote doesn’t change a government but. But how many people failed to vote in the last election? Everyone screams about “he didn’t win the popular vote” let me say voting itself doesn’t seem to be all that popular anyway.