# You should vote even if your partner's vote cancels yours **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 7, 2013, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321 "2013-11-07T09:51:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/21 "2013-11-08T21:21:42Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > You never discuss politics or news with your wife? In seventeen years? That’s as bizarrely unfathomable to me as the concept of not voting because my and my partner’s votes would cancel out. Ex wife. No. She was not a lot of fun to discuss politics with. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/22 "2013-11-09T16:31:42Z")
My grandmother absolutely refused to discuss politics with anyone. She voted every election, but never said for whom. If the topic of politics came up at a family gathering, she would leave the room. It wasn’t that she considered politics unimportant, but that she considered family harmony more important, and had judged that political discussion always ended up pissing off someone or another whom she didn’t want pissed off. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/23 "2013-11-09T16:50:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > My grandmother absolutely refused to discuss politics with anyone. She voted every election, but never said for whom. If the topic of politics came up at a family gathering, she would leave the room. > > It wasn’t that she considered politics unimportant, but that she considered family harmony more important, and had judged that political discussion always ended up pissing off someone or another whom she didn’t want pissed off. Family I understand. Even certain friends. (I specifically cultivate a non-political Facebook feed, for example.) But absolutely anyone? It’s a necessary part of democracy to discuss your politics so you can get new ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/24 "2013-11-09T19:43:42Z")
Well, obviously I don’t know what she said when no family members were present. I suppose it’s possible that she did discuss politics outside the family. If nothing else, she did read the paper and watch the news, and so got exposure to others’ ideas that way. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/25 "2013-11-09T21:36:07Z")
I never, ever heard my parents discuss politics, and as a family it never came up. I have no idea who my parents supported, and who my mum currently supports. Maybe this should be a separate thread. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/26 "2013-11-09T22:14:15Z")
We discussed politics all the time. It was discussing “family” that caused problems. ---
**Author:** ![Samarami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8491ac/32.png) [@Samarami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Samarami)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/27 "2013-11-10T00:02:21Z")
[Abstain from beans](http://www.anarchism.net/anarchism_abstainfrombeans.htm), my friends. Sam ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/28 "2013-11-10T20:51:27Z")
LOL, my former partner was a Hillary delegate to the state Democratic convention while I actively campaigned for Obama in 2008. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_Hey_Paula)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/29 "2013-11-11T02:28:44Z")
My husband doesn’t vote, won’t even register, so does that mean my vote counts twice as much without a partner to cancel me out? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/30 "2013-11-12T04:42:58Z")
> [@SmartAlecCat](#): > > Right, you should tell your partner you aren’t voting since they cancel out, then secretly vote anyway on your way home from work. When I first got involved in politics in high school, my mother confessed that she & my father had decided they would both not vote that year, because he was very busy starting a new business, and she was in late pregnancy (with me). But then I came early, and since on her way to the hospital she had to go right by the polling place, and the neighbor who was going to take care of things was an election judge, … so … she voted anyway, then went to the hospital to deliver me. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/31 "2013-11-12T05:28:11Z")
> [@Samarami](#): > > [Abstain from beans](http://www.anarchism.net/anarchism_abstainfrombeans.htm), my friends. > > Sam Of course, most Americans are not anarchists and will not be – in fact, if **all** American anarchists henceforth abstain from voting, that will make no statistically measurable difference in voter-turnout figures. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321/32 "2013-11-12T23:20:03Z")
> [@Samarami](#): > > [Abstain from beans](http://www.anarchism.net/anarchism_abstainfrombeans.htm), my friends. > > Sam First, I question the description calling that a “classic essay”. Whoever wrote that had an unreasonably high opinion of that word vomit. And second, its premise is silly. A principled stance will not prevent other people from coercing you. A principled stance will not prevent other people from coercing others. To abstain from voting as a protest is just going to result in the other side winning. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-should-vote-even-if-your-partners-vote-cancels-yours/673321.md?page=1)