I am not a big fan of politics. I follow it very loosely and generally cringe whenever I read a news article that is leaned towards one side or another. I vote because it is the civic thing to do and I usually have the time, but I do not think it is that big a deal if people do not vote. Most people when I tell them this are rather shocked...probably because I come across as a model citizen, and model citizens know the value of voting, right? Unfortunately, I also do a lot of random math in my head. Here is some math to determine how much your vote counts.
Before you go and say that every vote counts, I will first quell that by saying that you are wrong. Since we have the electoral college, your vote does not count unless you live in a swing state. New York, California, Massachusetts, Utah, Wyoming, and Oklahoma all had winning margins of over 20%. If you live there I can garauntee you that your vote makes no difference in the presedential election. Sorry, be sure to go out and vote if you want, just know that it most certainly will not make a difference in the outcome of the presidential election. If anything, it is probably worth staying home so you can honestly say you didn't vote for the winner whenever he or she does something you dislike.
I have the good fortune to live in Virginia, where in the 2008 presidential election Obama defeated McCain by a count of 1,959,532 to 1,725,005. A relatively slim 6% margin of victory. Compared to many other locations my vote could make a big difference, but how big of one?
Viriginia controlls 13 electoral votes. In the history of our country a swing of 13 votes from one side to the other would have made the difference in exactly 6 elections. Keep in mind though that 2 of those 6 events occured when there were only 138 total electoral votes being cast. So starting in 1820, when popular voting was more commonplace and there sufficient number of electoral votes to keep my 13 from being a disproportionate share, there were 4 out of 48 elections where that swing would change the outcome. From this, I assume that if my state were perfectly tied in voting and I were the only one left to vote, then there is a one in twelve chance that my vote will make a difference in the outcome of the election.
However, one vote is rather unlikely to be the difference in my state's election. In 2008 Virginia was won by a total of 234,527 votes. In that election, I would have had to vote for McCain 234,528 times in order to potentially change the outcome. It takes me about 1 hour of my time to vote. By that I mean from the time I leave my door to the time I return home from voting, 1 hour has elapsed. If my vote is worth 1 hour of my time, then the number of hours that I would have to be willing to give up in order to change the election would be 234,528 hours. That equates to 26.8 years. Would I be willing to give up 26.8 years to change the outcome of a state that had a 1/12 chance of altering the election? Would I give up 321 (26.8 x 12) years in order to garauntee that I changed the outcome of the election? No. Therefore it is not worth an hour of my time to vote.
I realize that I made a lot of assumptions, so do not be too critical. I just wanted to point out how little a single person's vote counts.
Here is an easier way to do the math:
There are 538 electors in the electoral college.
125,000,000 people voted in the last election.
Your vote was worth .0000043 electoral votes.
You would have to vote 232,000 times to change 1 electoral college vote.
If it takes you one hour to vote, that means you would have to spend 26.5 years voting to change a single vote in the electoral college.
Hope this has been enlightening and not too depressing.
- Jon
Side note: I can not think of a single vote in my life where the side I voted for either tied or won by a single vote. This includes anything from class secretary elections in grade school to presidential elections. How many can you think of?
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