Does our vote count? As we know our vote does not directly "rock" the vote. Our vote goes to the electoral college and then they cast the vote. Many states has a winner takes all approach to the electoral votes and they are not divided up or a reflection of the states choosing. According to the federal archives the only two states that do not support this policy are Maine and Nebraska both have proportional representation in voting. So what does that mean for your vote?
According to Landsburg, in "Don't Vote" your vote doesn't count. Your vote will not make a difference in the grand scheme of things. The only way in his mind your vote matters is if their is a tie. If you lived in Florida the chance of a tie is slim. "That's about 1 in 3,100- roughly the same as the probability you'll be murdered by your mother." That even decreases substantially if you are not in a swing state. So for those people voting in Texas, your vote probably play a large factor. And in the smaller states even if you vote in a small swing state your electoral votes may be so low it doesn't make a huge difference in the long run.
Ellensberg argues though that you can never comfortably know the other side. Many polls showed either party being a certain percentage in the lead and that can change many of the votes are based off initial polls. Many small swings in the swing states can make a big difference. I believe even besides the percentage that if every one of a certain party just assumed their vote wouldn't matter it would change results possibly enough to make a difference.
If you are in Nebraska or Maine however your vote matters slightly more. According to the federal archives 56.53% or 452,979 people for McCain and 41.60% or 333,319 people voted for Obama. 4 of the electoral votes went to McCain and 1 went to Obama. I am curious if anyone knows more about this process?
What do you think about the
What do you think about our current system and how it poorly reflects on votes?
Teresa, I like what you had to say about Landsburg’s article “Don’t Vote.” Landsburg makes the argument that we should not bother with voting because there is almost no chance that our ballot will be the deciding factor in any national election. He argues that in reality each individual vote is statistically insignificant, and thus we shouldn’t waste our time at the polls. While it may be true that each vote is statistically insignificant, our votes are not considered individually, but instead they are considered collectively. While an individual vote likely will not make a measurable difference in the grand scheme of things, collectively our votes do make a difference. Each individual ballot is considered and included in the collection of ballots that does decide elections. Elections are meant to determine the preference of the people as a whole. This being said, I almost think that it is a good thing that any one of our votes is not the deciding factor. I know this video has been circulating the internet lately, so some of you may have seen it already, but I think it is a perfect testament to why it is so important that our elections are not decided by one individual vote. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzvm7zd4Z-s Regardless of one’s political views, I would not feel comfortable knowing that there was a good chance that the future of our country could be decided by someone like this. People are going to vote for different reasons. While no system is perfect, our current system of voting seems to be the best way of representing what the majority of the people want while at the same time not giving too much power to people who may not be making decisions for the best reasons. While each individual vote may not make a big difference in the end, it is still important that we vote so that our preferences can be represented collectively.
ReplyDeleteErin, I had not yet seen that video. It was very scary in the sense that for the first few seconds I could barely believe it was genuine and once that passed, I was a little appalled that an individual could make a decision with such ridiculous reasoning. In that sense, it is probably a good thing that individual votes are insignificant as Landsburg suggests. I found it interesting that the chance of making a difference in the election in some states was less likely than winning the powerball. I did not find Ellenberg's argument as strong. Her reasoning did not convince me that one should vote more than Landsburg convinced me one shouldn't. So I agree with Erin that it may be a good thing that one single vote will not be a deciding factor and that our system represents the majority. I also found Arrow's article to be very interesting, I found his use of economic reasoning to be beneficial to my understanding of the concept.
DeleteErin, I am having trouble agreeing with your last comment. Our current system really isn't the best way to represent what the majority of the population wants, and that is partly because of how the electoral college is set up. Jordan Ellenberg said it in her article do the math, vote that if Bob Dole had 1.23 million more voters spread across 10 different states he would have won the election over Bill Clinton even though Clinton had a 8 million popular vote lead! How can that be, well it is because of the electoral college. Actually there has been 4 instances in which a president lost the popular vote, but won the presidency thanks to the electoral college since our current voting system has been put into place. Now for a president to win they must win the majority of the electoral votes (270 out of 538), however, if a candidate does not gain majority then it goes to the house of representatives. Once in the house, each representative gets 1 vote to cast towards the top three candidates. So the questions becomes does our vote really matter?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I feel the president should be someone who is put in power to try and put policies to benefit and please as many people as possible. The way to do that is by virtue of popular vote, at least that is how I feel. However, the electoral college has made is so that the candidates instead try to win over people who are in strategically big states like California and Texas. It just seems the majority of the power is not in our actual hands, but in the hands of the college. It is just set up to give us the delusion of power.
Relating to this topic, I think our discussion in class of the way states "cook up" congressional districts in order to exert control over the election process was very interesting, and something I had previously known very little about. It seems that if this is the case--that district lines are set so that one state may sway the vote one way or another--then individual voters have very little weight in the election process. The notion that individuals have that their votes make a difference becomes only an illusion of control, when really that control lies in the hands of those who have the power to set district lines. This information strongly relates to the article "Don't Vote . . . " . There is a VERY low probability that an individual vote will be a determining factor in any election, but votes, even collectively, do not carry the weight they should when voting districts are manipulated.
DeleteUmm....hahah I thnk it's both awesome and hilarious that your last question asks us what we think about politics... honestly I really doubt I can contribute much of anything of substance in this one, as I have some very strong feelings against the state of our current political system as well as politics in general. These, unfortunately, are only personal opinions (no matter how right I think they are) and so I will try to instead try to funnel them into something noteworthy....
ReplyDeleteLet's see... umm.. how bout I begin with the problems/the arguments against voting (presuming you have something better you can do with your time)? Landsburg, with amazing clarity, brings into a focus a very good point - if you ever told yourself that your individual vote was making a difference, you were either wrong or lying. While there are plenty of situational arguments that can excuse one's choice to "waste time" voting, in the end they mostly seem to dwindle down to personal philosophies and justifications such as "I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least try" or something like that. It's a personal acknowledgment of its futility in light of a more substantial reason. You can't really argue with that.
What you can argue with is the mentality that one's vote doesn't matter: the traditional slippery-slope argument "but if everyone thought like that...".... to which I think Landsburg's reply was rather unsatisfactory. What do you mean 'so what?'? Yeah, not everyone does think like that, but something he might have overlooked is that I'll bet that the majority of the people who do think like that are the ones who are intelligent enough to realize the futility of the individual vote and, by refusing to exercise that vote, are making way for the majority of ignorant and emotion-swayed voters [I mean no offense to them, but the literal job of a politician is to seize power by rhetorically swaying the emotions of the common people] to make a potentially hazardous decision......Indeed, on that note, I wonder if it might not be more effective to instead force the potential voters to earn their right to vote - would it really be that horrible to draw up a little voting registration pretest on the candidates, the issues, the state of the union, and democracy as a whole? If the individual can effectively demonstrate their knowledge of the current situation, they are allowed to vote. Seems more sensible to me.
Unfortunately there's even another reason why your vote won't matter - and, as I am bordering my own opinion, I'll keep it brief - and that is that neither outcome makes any difference. In our situation today, we have effectively dwindled the vote down to a two party system, which, in playing on the dualistic Gnosticism that runs through the deepest veins of our philosophical heritage, allows those in power to create a facade carrying two sides of extremes that the public can't get enough of: good vs. bad, right vs. wrong.... have you seen these latest ad campaigns?? By dividing the public's attention among relatively meaningless issues of absolutes, the corporate oligarchy is able to divert their focus from the fact that both candidates are playing for the same... no wait let me rephrase that - both candidates' strings are being tugged by the same puppetmaster. Course this is just my opinion, mind, but it influences my decisions nonetheless.
BUT in any case, I find I will have to in any case agree with Erin's statement in the comment before mine.....oh well it appears that Jared got one in there too.... hmm good point, Mr. Good. Even so, I find I cannot but say that the current state of affairs (barring certain particular changes as outlined by Jared) is nonetheless the best we can get. Indeed it is with a heavy sigh that I think our current situation, where everyone is free to vote however they want, regardless of whether it will do any good.... I'm afraid that's as good as it gets...
Going back to the question of does our vote really matter, I would argue the majority of the population has a skewed perspective on how much influence their vote actually has. Many are unfamiliar with the formalities of the election process and how ballots are counted, which likely affects ones perspective on the importance of voting. It is also important to realize that people may fail to understand that the percentages of a vote population are indicative of hundreds of thousands of people and thus do not necessarily represent a close race. I thought Landsburg did an excellent job of putting things into perspective numerically, with the overall intention of illustrating the probability of a vote actually having a direct impact on the outcome. I don't think this is necessarily an attack on the voting system, but it does bring us to question if voting is really worth while. It is the mass number of votes that essentially make an individual vote seemingly non-influential. Despite the odds presented by Landsburg, people continue to vote. Would they no longer vote if they read this article? Probably not, and for a number of reasons. For one, I would argue many people find comfort in the idea that they have some input in the direction of the country, even if their vote doesn't necessarily dictate the results of the election. Secondly, I believe many people fail to understand statical information and probability and make not even care if they were to understand. For instance the odds of winning the lottery are horrendous but people still play because someone is going to be a winner and hell, it could be them.
ReplyDeleteJared, you make a strong argument about the flaws of the voting system but I wouldn't necessarily agree with your statement about the president. Although it would be nice if the majority could get what benefits them personally, I would argue this somewhat contradicts the idea of freedom. It is freedom that allows us to distinguish ourselves from the majority and to progress in a fashion not dictated by the government. I also find voting by virtue of popular vote appealing, but perhaps the current system protects against the potential danger that could stem from the power of popular vote. It seems impossible to think the majority could support a candidate with ill intention for the country but it is something to consider. I agree with Erin that although our vote may not directly influence the results in the voting system of the United States, we are not necessarily trying to single-handedly change the results ourselves but rather help represent preferences collectively, thus there is still purpose in voting.
The debate over whether or not one should vote always makes a resurgence every four years. I know people who refuse to even register to vote because they feel that it is pointless to do so while other people eagerly wait for Election Day and the opportunity to make their voice heard. It seems views on the election system can be just as disparate as views on the political candidates. I am not very familiar with the voting system and can’t knowledgeably make suggestions, but if there are dissenting voices on how the system is run, why has nothing been done to alter the system in an attempt to better it? I know the concept of bettering the voting system is very subjective and understand that that is part of the reason why things have not been altered. But the government is supposed to represent the views of the people and I’m sure many people feel strongly about the election system. So why have these concerns not yet been addressed by the government?
ReplyDelete