A Philosophy of Voting (or "Why I'm Voting for Gary Johnson")

[engelhardtlm1]

Over the past several years (5 or 10), my philosophy of voting has changed remarkably. For a while I was a conscientious non-voter. I bought into the argument proposed by some libertarians that voting, in itself, indicates agreement with the system, and, therefore, is an act of aggression against other people since the system is inherently filled

Comments

[whirlwindmonk]

Maybe (okay, probably) you're not going to vote for Gary Johnson.

*Raises hand* Unless I find something in his platform I vehemently disagree with (which the transitive property suggests I won't), what I know of him so far has earned my vote.

[irked_indeed]

If votes are tools used to influence election outcomes, they are typically useless ones. In each election, nearly all the votes are wasted. For example, in 2008, every single vote for John McCain was thrown away. If all the McCain voters had just stayed home, the election's outcome would have been exactly the same. At the same time, every vote that went to Pres. Obama that he didn't absolutely need was also a waste.

The major issue I have with this is that it relies on information that's not available until after the fact. Practically speaking, in each state that Obama won up to his necessary electoral bounds, (McCain voters + 1) Obama votes were not wasted. Had McCain won, that situation would have been reversed.

It is frequently the case that one can't tell which of those situations one will find oneself in until after the election is over. Thus, from information in hand at the time of voting, it's statistically plausible that your vote will matter, particularly in anything like a battleground state. The odds never quite break 50/

[engelhardtlm1]

The odds never quite break 50/50, but they can get pretty close. (In a 60/40 split, say, 6/10 of voters were in the winning side; of these, 4/6 were votes that mattered by negating opposing votes, so an arbitrary voter had a 40% chance of mattering.This math can't be right. Any individual vote will make no difference in this 60-40 election, so an arbitrary individual voter doesn't have a 40% chance of mattering. There's a difference between "40% of the votes mattered." and "Each vote had a 40% chance of changing the outcome of the election." The likelihood that a vote will change the outcome of the election is based on the prior likelihood that the votes of the other voters will result in a tie (or within 1 vote of a tie). This can be calculated under certain assumptions - and the odds are typically very small. The trick is that I'm taking other voters' votes as independent of my vote - which I think is fair, since I don't commit voter fraud and am not a political thought leader. (Now, what a political thought leader SAYS might have

[irked_indeed]

This math can't be right. Any individual vote will make no difference in this 60-40 election, so an arbitrary individual voter doesn't have a 40% chance of mattering. There's a difference between "40% of the votes mattered." and "Each vote had a 40% chance of changing the outcome of the election."

Well, sure. My contention is the former - if these votes mattered, then they aren't "useless," as you suggested above.

There's a significant difference between "not going to swing any elections" and "not going to send *much* of a message". A very small number divided by zero is infinity. But, I think where you go from here misses the point I'm making. The point isn't about the effect on policies. The point is just whether I'm sending an accurate message about my preferences that is unlikely to be misinterpreted. A vote for the lesser evil between Romney and Obama is very likely to be misinterpreted. A vote for Johnson is not.But this assumes that the vote for Johnson will be significant - that it will send any kind of message at all. If we

[engelhardtlm1]

Well, sure. My contention is the former - if these votes mattered, then they aren't "useless," as you suggested above.

If I get to cast 40% of the votes, then, there's a good chance of my vote not being useless. My point about the vote being "useless" is that my individual vote is, in all likelihood, useless (all-else-equal) when it comes to changing the outcome of the election.

This is why I think, if we really want to make a difference in an election's outcome, we need to stop worrying so much about our own votes and start worrying more about our influence over other people's votes. An individual vote won't change the outcome of the election - but a sufficiently large block of votes obviously will.

But this assumes that the vote for Johnson will be significant - that it will send any kind of message at all.Of course it sends a message. It sends the message that the vote was cast for Johnson. Since people voting for Johnson are probably not doing it so that he'll win (we all know he won't), it probably sends the message that the