Why do you vote (or not vote)?

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by wig@Oct 27 2004, 08:12 AM
Colin, are you going to vote?

Hey Wig,

I never vote. From a mathematical point of view, the chance of my one vote making any difference at all is close to null. More importantly, the effort I have to exert to vote isn't worth the chance that my one vote might count. Bad risk/reward if you ask me. If I could vote online with a click of a button maybe I would but there is no candidate I like this year. Maybe I'd vote for one of the alternative candidates just for kicks but I seldom know much about them because, let's face it, they don't matter in the big scheme of things.

I think I have every right to complain even if I don't vote so no problem there and no one has shut me up yet.

If "everyone thought that way" I would vote and my candidate would win 1-0.

One more interesting argument presented to me by Jesse and I think it's great. One million people voting represents the population at large to within .1% 67% of the time and to within .2% 95% of the time (standard deviations). That's what we're REALLY doing. We're sampling the population to see what everyone wants. This is why representative government works and also an argument against the Australian policy that you can steal, CJ. ;-) Even the smallest states get a few hundred thousand people voting and the error there is only double the above. So I'm quite happy enough with the sample size. No need to add one more.