Voting is not a fight. Not even in the slightest bit. It's an exercise in statistical bureaucracy to find out who people want to hold that office. There's not even the tiniest element of 'fight' in it. — Isaac
I'll keep voting and have some victories while you can sit home and let people like me decide your future without opposition. — Philosophim
I'll keep voting and have some victories while you can sit home and let people like me decide your future without opposition. — Philosophim
Your vote doesn't matter. It won't change anything unless you vote in a small enough election where it's possible for one vote to matter. — Marchesk
Voting (or not) does not decide my future. It's not a belief, it's a fact. — Isaac
Reducing your carbon footprint by 90% or increasing it by 200% will do practically nothing to save or to harm the planet. Having just one cigarette in a pub is not going to give anyone emphysema. Etc. — Cuthbert
Not a small but insignificant difference (such as with reducing one's carbon footprint), absolutely no difference at all — Isaac
If your vote carries no weight and your vote carries the same weight as everyone else's, then nobody's vote carries any weight. — Cuthbert
One suggestion has been to count the spoilt ballots, and if the spoilt ballots 'win' all the candidates are barred and a new election with new candidates is held. Politicians invariably reject this idea, and that makes me think it a good idea. — unenlightened
I think this a problem for any sphere in which individual actions count for little or nothing but group actions determine the result. Reducing your carbon footprint by 90% or increasing it by 200% will do practically nothing to save or to harm the planet. Having just one cigarette in a pub is not going to give anyone emphysema. Etc. — Cuthbert
If vote (in a situation where I know I'm in a minority) I haven't done some small amount of good. I've done no good at all. The opposition party have won and get to enact their policies in exactly the same way they would have if I hadn't voted. Exactly the same. Not a small but insignificant difference (such as with reducing one's carbon footprint), absolutely no difference at all. — Isaac
One way they are seen to grow is by increasing their support in an election. Thus If I vote Green and the Green candidate does not win, still I have demonstrated some support for Green policies. — unenlightened
Voting is simply the bureaucratic exercise of officially informing the returning officer of that position.
If I vote, I give the returning officer a more accurate dataset. — Isaac
Showing support influences others. — unenlightened
Tories are not necessarily persuaded to be less bigoted by an increasing Labour vote. They may even be persuaded to be more bigoted to pick up the EDL vote to compensate. — Isaac
No, I don't consider it a viable position. Here's why:Is refusing to vote a viable political position? — NOS4A2
Even if your preferences are far from the median voters', your vote will still move the needle towards your preferences and away from the ones you most dislike. — Count Timothy von Icarus
voting for the candidate you least dislike is still an option. — Count Timothy von Icarus
what you have is a tipping point. If you are balancing weights on a fulcrum, and you have more weight on one side than the other, and so you get a tip to one side, it isn't that the mass on the other side is reduced to zero, it just isn't enough to stop the tipping. — Count Timothy von Icarus
as one sided as the US system can get, you still get surprises. Massachusetts has had two long term Republican governors recently who were quite popular. Kentucky currently has a Democratic governor. Parties with dominating leads in average voter preference can still manage to muck things up for themselves. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Winning on slim margins may also signal to election winners that they may need to moderate their views if they want to win re-election. This isn't always how it works, but it sometimes does. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Brexit got done despite the Brexit party never winning significantly, because the movement became a bandwagon and the bigots climbed aboard. So losing votes matter. — unenlightened
Do you not think their success is far more likely to be down to their (Cambridge Analytica) campaign strategy, rather than people seeing a few measly votes and thinking 'sod it, let's leave Europe, I'm sold"? — Isaac
No. I think their success was down to frightening the Tories into adopting their policy, which they did by "splitting the vote." Without those losing votes, there would have been no referendum. — unenlightened
Elections are decided by votes and the structure of the election system, not be preferences. — Count Timothy von Icarus
If preferences = outcomes than the Republican party would be extinct at the national level because it fares worse with median preferences continually. It is viable in part because of election mechanics (e.g., the electoral college, partisan districting, capping the House of Reps early in the 20th century, the arbitrary representation of the Senate) — Count Timothy von Icarus
Having less support but supporters who are much more likely to vote is the thing that keeps the party competitive, none of the other stuff would save them without that edge. — Count Timothy von Icarus
It just happens rarely because radicals are, pretty much by definition, far from median preferences and so are unlikely to win in any electoral system. — Count Timothy von Icarus
even if you're a radical you probably have competitive candidates that are closer to your ideal than others. — Count Timothy von Icarus
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