Rock The Vote? A Delusion Of Grandeur?

[Adrestia]

Choosing to skip voting because your vote for president will be inconsequential prevents you from voting for local council members or bonds or other consequential issues.

I live in TX. It doesn't matter which Rep candidate gets the nomination, he will get every TX electoral vote. I might as well write in my pet dog for president. I still go vote because other items are on the ballot.

And yeah. I'm Black and female. A lot of people suffered and died for me to have the right to vote, so I use it.

[brianthephysicist]

[quote name='Adrestia' timestamp='1330087944' post='2392173']
Choosing to skip voting because your vote for president will be inconsequential prevents you from voting for local council members or bonds or other consequential issues.

I live in TX. It doesn't matter which Rep candidate gets the nomination, he will get every TX electoral vote. I might as well write in my pet dog for president. I still go vote because other items are on the ballot.

And yeah. I'm Black and female. A lot of people suffered and died for me to have the right to vote, so I use it.
[/quote]

This is the point that I was trying to address with my post earlier.

Yes, I do fully know and acknowledge that my vote will have little to no effect on the presidential election for[i] this [/i]election. But by staying involved locally, I will be affecting future presidential elections by influencing who gets elected locally. How many presidents did [i]not[/i] start out in local (city/county/state) government?

Just two examples of what I'm talking about can be found here:[url="http://www.lipolitics.com/eye-on-nassau-18.htm"]http://www.lipolitics.com/eye-on-nassau-18.htm[/url] & [url="http://patchogue.patch.com/articles/7th-ld-race-headed-for-recount-with-calarco-leading-by-103-votes"]http://patchogue.patch.com/articles/7th-ld-race-headed-for-recount-with-calarco-leading-by-103-votes[/url]

These elections were incredibly close. By voting for one candidate or the other, we foster or hamper aspirations to proceed to higher government.

[Ice_nine]

Could be wrong. Didn't read the article, but I think L_D is talking about national elections. I'd agree that staying involved on a local level has a much greater impact, depending where you're at.

But that's not usually what a "rock the vote" campaign is aimed at.

[BG45]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1330072621' post='2392162']
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.
[/quote]

Ah gotcha LD. I fully intend to vote 3rd party. The only Republican I would be able to stomach is Ron Paul. Santorum is notoriously corrupt. Romney has more faces than a hydra. Gingrich marries everyone he has an affair with. And Obama on the Democratic side? I'd never vote Obama due to his policies, and being the only President I can recall who has managed to unite the Supreme Court against him in religious freedom issues.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='eagle_eye222001' timestamp='1330037465' post='2391892']
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.
[/quote]
In such a scenario models would indicate extraordinarily good odds and consequentialist voting would be rationally justified. You're not understanding what I'm saying.

[Aloysius]

a single vote doesn't really make a difference in national elections, especially considering the two-party tyranny that has made the entire voting system almost irrelevant. Obama and Santorum and Romney and Newt all want us to have more wars, they all propose budgets that increase the deficit (to varying degrees), they are all in the pockets of special interests... and they all put on a great theatre about why they're all so different. I sympathise greatly with non-voter apathy; people say you have no right to complain if you didn't vote, I say you have every right to complain if you didn't vote because you didn't feel represented by either candidate.

anyway, I'm trying to have a bigger impact. merely voting doesn't make much a difference, but getting involved in the process can make a difference. in the primary season, if you're realy committed to one candidate who, I don't know, might actually be significanty different than the others like a Ron Paul on the right or even a Dennis Kucinich on the left (say what you will, he's at least a good principled man who bothers to stray from the party lines now and then), then in the primary seasons you can organize rallies and pass out literature and speak at your caucus and maybe even try to become a delegate to a convention. there remain within the system things that people who are excited and committed can actually do to influence the vote. in PA our delegates are directly elected and I have my name on the primary ballot so people can vote for me to be a delegate. 4 people go from my district, there are 12 on the ballot, so I have about a 1/3 chance to be a delegate, where my vote will be one out of about 2400... I'd say I've significanty increased my odds of having an effect on the nominee.

I actually wish there was a bit more of these kinds of things, to be honest. pure democracy means you have a bunch of people all lining up to buy their national lottery ticket... a more republican form of voting, maybe even having some type of caucuses and the like in the general election (more well regulated than the primary ones), would make it more possible for a single man with conviction to have an effect on an election. If we had more systems in place like these, we could get rid of the statistical garbage guilt trip about everybody voting and if you don't vote you can't complain, and instead inspire the people that DO care to stand up and try to make a difference, while letting the people that don't care sit down and stay uninvolved as they please, letting the people that do care make the difference.