Rock The Vote? A Delusion Of Grandeur?

[Laudate_Dominum]

[url="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/probdecisive2.pdf"]What is the probability your vote will make a difference?[/url]

Short version: It depends a great deal on your state and particulars of the election (the paper is from '08), but in general if you don't vote you deserve about as much chastisement as you'd get for failing to buy a lottery ticket once every 16 years. Look man, if you're not rich it's your own beaver dam fault for failing to buy that lottery ticket that one time. shaking my head...

Debate!

[sixpence]

people would feel better if they had some kind of pre-voting pep-rally and got a bunchof like-minded individuals (of the same district lol) to go and vote together...haha

[eagle_eye222001]

Of course if you have 1,000 people think that their vote is not likely to mean anything, and therefore they don't vote.

What happens when one side wins by 700 votes? Each of the 1000 will then justify their absence by saying their individual absence didn't mean anything. Which is correct. But when 1000 people think the same thing, there are different consequences.


Vote. Or risk being part of the group that could have likely changed the outcome.

[elizabeth09]

One vote changes everything

[brianthephysicist]

I agree with eagle eye's sentiment.

A quick glance at [url="http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p20-556.pdf"]http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p20-556.pdf[/url] shows we have ~60-65% of US citizens over 18 voting in the last few presidential elections.

That is a huge number of voters that could easily swing the election in any candidate's favor.


Part of making your vote count is believing that it will count.

People often feel that this is outside of their power to control, but if you really think about it, this all begins at the local level. Few people progress to the level of running for president without first being a governor or congressman and they don't often get there without being involved in local government like mayor, city councilman, or state legislator.

I will always tell people that if they truly want to affect the presidency, take every election seriously, both local and national.

[MIKolbe]

everybody is special to Jesus.

that is not off topic if you think about it.

[Adrestia]

Our votes count in local elections.

[BG45]

What Brian and Eagle said. And Adrestia said.

I work the polls when I can at home. It pays well for a day's work. On the local level, I've seen a lot of stuff defeated by a handful of votes when the numbers came in from every precinct.

In the documentary Jesus Camp, disgraced megachurch pastor Ted Haggard said that if evangelicals vote, they sway the election. That's true. But ANY group that actually votes in numbers will sway an election. The liberal Catholics greatly helped elect Obama in 2008. The Evangelicals helped vote Bush in. On a local level, elderly usually defeat school bonds.

[Ice_nine]

go in a booth
mark off a couple of check boxes

congratulations you've changed the world

[Laudate_Dominum]

I think some people didn't read the paper. Shame shame. hehe

In some states the probability of a single vote making a difference is hundreds of millions, even billions to one (100 billion to 1 in D.C. during the '08 elections). I would like my beliefs about voting to be informed by legitimate data and mathematics rather than based on delusions of grandeur. I still intend to vote even if the odds of making a difference are many times worse than the odds of buying a winning lottery ticket (I will be pretty happy with 60 million to 1). It's just not a big deal to go in and check boxes and I have little to lose anyway.

If I may quote myself from FB:

I think it would be neat if consequentialist "rock the vote" arguments were generally commensurate with the mathematical realities. I may vote if my software model indicates that it is at all worth the time and hydrocarbons. We shall see.

It's too early to assess, but if it turns out that my chances of winning the state lottery are significantly greater than making a difference in the election I think I'll just go buy a lottery ticket. Being rich would be interesting and it would open up new options for making a difference. (I feel like Kirk in Generations right now. "Did we make a difference?")


Hopefully this clear up where I'm coming from. Final important fact: this thread is not particularly serious. Tee-hee, haw-haw, lawl.

[Brother Adam]

I don't think we vote because we are going to personally swing an election, but because it is a freedom granted for us by our grandfathers who died to defend the right to vote. Groups of people with similar ideology swing elections their way, if they work together and vote. I personally believe Obama wil be re-elected as of right now, as he goes after one group at a time with handouts - such as those with college debt, our upside down mortgages.

[Ed Normile]

Wow, this age old argument is always put out there by the liberal establishment every election. Far more of a percentage of liberals vote than conservative/christians, its a fact. That is the reason why we have what has been termed the silent majority, in a country that is mostly christian and taking in to account freedom of religion, also has muslims, hindus, buddhists, etc. that beleive in the same moral values basically that christians do, that is the reason most elections are so close. The last time the "silent majority" spoke out by showing up at the polls was for Ronald Reagen, largely in protest over the mess the country was plunged into at the hands of Liberal/Socialist President Jimmy Carter. Liberals on the other hand show up enmasse to any event, gay marches, abortion rights protests, etc. but especially elections as they know their smaller numbers can and do make a difference when they all turn out, heck, even the dead ones regularly show up to vote in Illinois.

If you prefer to fall for the fallacy that your vote does not count than do not complain under four more years of our Imperial Leader Obama trashing the constitution and removing your freedoms, such as freedom of religion as that freedom does not exist in a socialist agenda as the government is the "god" that gives you your rights.

ed

Edited February 24, 2012 by Ed Normile

[Ed Normile]

Laudate Domino, where did you come up with the "100 billion to 1 in D.C. during the '08 elections" statistic? mathematically thats drivel. Think about it, there is nowhere near 100 billion voters in the whole country, if everyone else in the country voted against your guy that would be something like 4 billion votes for the other guy. I know you said a single vote, but in reality that would only come into play in an election where there were maybe 3 voters. Besides that, the District of Columbia is a very sparsely populated area, did you read this in a liberal rag like the NY Times or the Wall Street Journal?

ed

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1330063174' post='2392141']
I don't think we vote because we are going to personally swing an election, but because it is a freedom granted for us by our grandfathers who died to defend the right to vote. [/quote]
If your reasons for voting are non-consequentialist then the statistical considerations may not apply, but then you're effectively having a different discussion. There is something kind of razzle dazzle, from an anthropological pov, about voting as a ritual of homage to dead ancestors. Fascinating. But maybe that's just supposed to be a guilt-trip of some kind. I've noticed that quite often the reasons given for voting are guilt trips of dubious worth. I'm interested in the concrete value of the vote and not its related folklore.

[quote name='Ed Normile' timestamp='1330063252' post='2392142']
...
If you prefer to fall for the fallacy that your vote does not count than do not complain under four more years of our Imperial Leader Obama trashing the constitution and removing your freedoms, such as freedom of religion as that freedom does not exist in a socialist agenda as the government is the "god" that gives you your rights.[/quote]
Expressions of paranoia and an exaggerated attempt at guilt-based psychological manipulation. Therefore, go vote?

The idea is not that an individuals vote never counts, but rather, the idea is simply to acquire a perception of that vote that is consistent with the reality. It is quite possible that voting may be consequentially justified based on the particular stakes and the odds. I won't bore you by repeating things said in previous posts.

[quote name='Ed Normile' timestamp='1330064059' post='2392148']
Laudate Domino, where did you come up with the "100 billion to 1 in D.C. during the '08 elections" statistic?[/quote]
The paper linked in the original post. The abstract summarizes what they did: "One of the motivations for voting is that one vote can make a difference. In a presidential election, the probability that your vote is decisive is equal to the probability that your state is necessary for an electoral college win, times the probability the vote in your state is tied in that event. We computed these probabilities a week before the 2008 presidential election, using state-by-state election forecasts based on the latest polls..."

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1330056680' post='2392092']
What Brian and Eagle said. And Adrestia said.
[/quote]
Okay, but that stuff isn't really what the OP is talking about. I'll elaborate for teh lulz. (And again, this thread is only for teh lulz, not serious.) What I'm basically interested in is simply understanding the statistical landscape in a given election, particularly the presidential election. That's all. I think it is best to have an understanding that reflects the reality. Will it spoil the magic of Christmas to acquire an understanding of the odds?

Here's some controversy fodder (again, for teh lulz): "If you don't vote for [king of the right] you're effectively voting for [left-wing evil incarnate baby killer]." I've encountered many guilt/blame memes of this sort. It's interesting. Does it ever have a substantial basis in reality? When considering the odds, non-consequentialist justifications for voting may be all that applies (read the paper to see what I mean); in such cases it is even more erroneous to "blame" people who use their vote on third party candidates, or who opt not to vote at all.