Thanks for the reference Doc. I would like to clarify my position, and it involves a paradox!
Most objections to my view on voting stems from creating strawman arguments, that are then easy to knock down. They are misrepresentations about what I actually say. I am very precise in what I say! I state X, but the emotions from objectors then distort my X. They attack Y, stating I am claiming Y when in fact I am talking about X! People are not listening to what I am actually saying, since it goes against every grain of their entrenched belief system. It brings about the same feeling in me that an atheist has when talking with a religious person about the evidence for God.
So let me explain.
To see that 1 vote decided the outcome of kentucky house is a great example of proving my point, not disproving it. I can approach this from multiple angles but because I want to cook my nachos and I am hungry, I will truncate my reply!
1. Providing a single example proves how rare it is. I would like two examples please to half the rareness!
2. The fewer the number of voters, the more likely I will vote, since my vote then has more weight.
3. When looking at the single example, you then have to factor in how many different districts there are where people vote. So, if once a year there was just one case of winning by one vote, yet there are 435 members in the House of Representatives (if that is how it works), then you have a 1/435 chance (or a 0.23% chance) of your vote doing something. i.e. negligible.
4. How many times in the past 10 years has there been a victory based on one vote? That example could have been the only time, thus changing the odds to a 0.023% chance of having an effect, if this is the case.
5. If as a non-voter I deserve the government I get, does that mean I also deserve the best government if they get in too?
6. If everybody thought the way I did, then nobody would vote. Then I would change my strategy and vote, since it has more weight. (see #2).
7. I believe in democracy and the voting system. Yet here is where the paradox kicks in. I believe voting is good because then you get what the majority seek. Yet at the same time, my vote is next to worthless since the probability of it affecting anything is incredibly small.
8. The abuse to the environment from people travelling to vote, while their own vote is next to worthless, is contrary to the approach to save the environment.
9. Is there any evidence that having a larger sample size of voters is better than a smaller sample size? How do we know if the proportions will have any significant difference to the outcome? The proportion may be very similar.
10. If a vote is nearly 50:50, when viewed from a meta perspective of the whole country, if your one vote tilted things in your favoured direction, you got your own way. Great. But almost half the remaining people didn't. It is a bit like Brexit. The vote was close. Half in, half out. So viewed from the perspective of net gain by individual count, there is virtually none. Half winners, half losers. This is poorly explained as I have only just thought about this perspective, and it is my weakest argument in this case. But I hope you see my point.
I have already given the arguments of risk to life while travelling to the voting booth, and perhaps also the opportunity cost of the time spent doing something pointless.
To my mind, the only reason to vote is if you enjoy the process itself. Then it conveys some tangible benefit, rather than a pipedream. It is an illusion if you think your individual vote is making a jot of difference. Sadly, this illusion has conned the world!
[Edit: I didn't end up truncating my reply and now I am hungrier than ever!]
