Because my dream is to make Kansas blue one of these days.
Hey, a guy can dream, right?
So when like minded folks want to move to your state, they’ll know which county to choose.
My state may be guaranteed (Nebraska), but my 2nd District Electoral Vote certainly wasn’t. As a matter of fact, we won’t know for sure who gets the Nebraska 2nd Electoral Vote for about a week, it’s that close.
In other elections not so close, I vote because to not is to symbolically spit in the face of all the people I have personally met who have been tortured or exiled for the mere desire for democracy. To my mind, there is no greater arrogance than an American who is eligible but doesn’t vote.
Oh good, an opportunity to make fun of my parents!
From what I can tell, they vote just so they can complain. They live in downstate Illinois, a bastion of conservative crapola. They complain endlessly about the city dwellers getting the benefit of their tax dollars and messing up their elections. “Why should we pay taxes just so someone in Chicago can have public transportation!?” So even though they are certain that elections will be won by liberals, they continue to take part in elections so that they can whine and feel superior on some level.
I love getting to tell them that their efforts are futile. Perhaps they vote for my entertainment. I’m certainly having a good laugh today.
As howye said, things can change. If you don’t vote, you can never change things in the way you would like.
For example, in 1984 I voted for the Democrat (Mondale) even though California was a solid Republican state. At that time there was hardly a state more surely in Reagan’s corner than California. Not only was it Reagan’s home state, but CA had been straight Republican in many presidential elections.
Yesterday I voted for a Democrat in California again, but this time it was quite a different story!
Ed
If you don’t vote, the country will end up with candidate X. If you do vote, the country will end up with candidate…X. Not sure where people get the idea that if I don’t vote, others won’t either. I promise others will STILL show up to vote and it’ll STILL be a landslide for X.
It’s so people can feel superior to others and good about themselves. They drank the “Rock the Vote” Kool-aid. Kinda like taking the Eucharist. It doesn’t accomplish anything but it makes people happy. Then they rub it in your face, proclaiming that if you didn’t vote, you’re a lazy citizen and can’t complain about the result, disregarding the fact that it’s the voters, not the nonvoters, that are responsible for the result. They like the idea that when they vote, they can go “Well, I tried.” and people will actually BUY that garbage.
PA wasn’t very swingy this election. Mom urged me for weeks to go vote. I finally went cuz, hey, I had nothing better to do. I voted for myself for every office, despite not even being eligible. I told my mom this. She THANKED ME for finally doing it. I screamed “Did you hear what I said? I voted for me!” She said it didn’t matter who, as long as I performed the secular ritual and voted.
Is that why Obama managed to win Indiana, a “guaranteed” Republican state?
One vote will change the election just as decidedly in Alabama as it will in Ohio. That is to say, never. So we vote for the same reasons here in Alabama folks in Florida and Virginia do.
Why WOULDN’T anyone bother to vote!?
I don’t know how “guaranteed” Indiana is, given that its junior Senator is a Democrat, and that he, along with several other Democrats, served as Governor of Indiana before the current Governor was elected in 2004. Hardly a pure red state, in spite of its history in presidential elections.
North Carolina? Virginia? Hell, I even had hopes that MY state would go blue at one point yesterday. People who don’t bother to exercise this basic right and freedom don’t deserve it.
If you convince yourself to do nothing, because nothing you can do matters, you will be right.
Does this “you” mean “you, the OP” or does it mean “you, the American public”?
As said above, my vote might make a difference in the city council election. While I’m there voting for that, I might as well put in my vote for president - it’s not like I’m saving a bunch of time by skipping that box.
Of course, at some point in the future, the science of polling will be so advanced that elections will happen like in this Isaac Asimov short story I read once, where only one person in the whole USA needs to cast a ballot for president - from his choicestatisticans can predict how the rest of the country would have voted.
No offense but I got a good chuckle out of this. I can’t wait till my sons turn 18! 
Yes, well, this was a Presidential election, so I don’t see what your point is. Obama won three states that last voted for a Democrat in the landslide of '64, and Indiana was one of them.
Voting is our duty as citizens.
Nothing makes me feel as patriotic as voting. I love walking around with my I Voted sticker. (I asked for, and was given, a second one for a friend who voted absentee. She was thrilled to have it.)
Even though Michigan wasn’t close in the presidential race, the two propositions were a lot more questionable. I am very pleased to have contributed to their victories (which allow for medical marijuana and stem cell research, respectively).
That’s why I vote.
Here is a real reason: In some states this will have an effect on how many delegates you get to the national convention. Those Kerry voters in solid red state Texas helped determine how many delegates Texas got to the national convention. Those delegates were very important in the Clinton/Obama contest.
Because party apparatchiks will tailor future party platforms based upon what they believe will give them the 270 EC votes necessary to win the next election. If you lessen the margin of victory of the opposing party’s candidate, then you give them an incentive to move towards the center. If you increase the margin of victory for your preferred party’s candidate, you lessen their incentive to move towards the center.
'Cuz it’s only a sure thing if people actually vote? Last election, I voted Green because polls indicated that my riding was going to be a walk for the Liberals. The Conservative candidate won. :smack:
I voted in California for several reasons.
Hate to see someone with a large % of popular vote, They will tell congress “stuff it” I have a mandate and you have to do what I tell you.
Bescides the pres election there were 12 ballot measures.
There was a congressman to vote for
there was a couonty supervisor to vote for
there were city and couonty measures to vote for.
So my vote for McLain does count, maybe not for much but it does count.
I didn’t really vote for McCain, I voted against Obama getting to roll into everything he ever dreamed of. This was the only way I could be comfortable with my vote either way, because O was going to win CA unless he punched a gay guy and kicked a baby seal on election day.