As we roll into November 2007 with all political eyes fixed on November 2008, do not let this year's Election Day pass you by. The contests may be less than nail-biting, but voting is still a virtue, and we should head to the polls as always. Right? Actually, no.
The reason is not that this year's contests are unimportant. With regard to affecting future public policy, voting in any national, state or municipal political election is almost always a waste of time. The essential insight is this: The only possible outcomes in which your vote materially "counts" are those in which it changes the result of the election, such as by breaking a tie. Or, in this era of contested elections, by narrowing the gap just close enough, or widening it just far enough, to persuade or dissuade one of the candidates from demanding a recount.
It is with negligible frequency that political elections are decided by a single vote. I do not know the exact number of times this has happened, but it is undeniably tiny relative to the total number of national, state and municipal political elections that have ever taken place in the United States. Thus, the probability is infinitesimal that any given election will be one in which your vote, if you cast one, would make a difference.
One caveat, though. If the pool of potential voters is small -- imagine a Maine hamlet of 80 electing a new town manager -- this analysis does not hold. This is because elections among such small groups are decided by a single ballot with appreciable frequency. On the other hand, voting in the largest, most "important" elections, such as presidential races in Ohio and Florida, is even more useless than usual.
You might object that if everybody thought this way, nobody would vote. Sure. But each citizen's voting decision is an independent event, and very few approach voting this way. In large elections, we can thus assume the presence of many voters regardless of our own thought processes.
Alternatively, we could construct a game-theory model. Perhaps there is a "critical probability" that one's vote will affect an election's outcome above which citizens would like to vote and below which they would like to abstain. We could then calculate the equilibrium probability that each individual citizen will randomly choose to vote. Guillermo Owen and Bernard Grofman calculated this probability in a 2004 paper. More realistically, we could assume that the critical probability is normally distributed throughout the citizenry. To my knowledge, nobody has done this analysis. Either way, the result is that in large elections, many citizens vote.
In view of its uselessness, voting is popular solely because of the self-satisfaction many Americans feel upon having "fulfilled their civic duty." Joe votes because it makes him feel good -- good enough to make up for the hour or two he spends in transit and in line at the polling place.
Each citizen should consider whether there are activities other than voting that yield the same civic satisfaction. It you think there are not, you must accept that you have been brainwashed to gain pleasure from wasting two hours on a useless task each November.
Consider volunteering for your favored candidate. If you spend two hours manning a table, you will reach many people. If you persuade even a single person to switch to your candidate from an opponent, you will have changed the difference in vote totals by two in your favor -- the opponent loses one vote, your candidate gains one. That is twice the impact your own vote would have made, with the same time investment. Of course, setting out to change one mind sets the bar quite low. If over the course of two hours you change 20 minds and persuade another 30 likely non-voters to come to the polls for your candidate, you have just bought 70 votes for the price of one.
There are many other choices. Phone banking and posting flyers are similar in reach to tabling, but you can do better. Write an opinion column -- you will reach thousands. Start a blog -- you could reach millions. Post a Youtube video -- you could reach millions overnight. If you are really ambitious, you could attempt to rig the election. I do not recommend this, as it is illegal and carries both a high probability of detection and steep costs conditional thereon, even for Republicans. But, in principle, it is just like the other options.
The public policy issues at stake in political elections are too important to ignore. Take a stand and make your voice heard. Don't waste time voting.
