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Does your vote matter?

You go to your local polling place and vote only for the President of the United States on Nov. 5. D

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Kory

Kory

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You go to your local polling place and vote only for the President of the United States on Nov. 5. Did the vote you cast matter/make a difference?
 
There's a formula for this, kinda! To determine if voting is worth it.

pB + D > C

Where p = the probability of your vote being the deciding ballot, B = the utility derived from your candidate winning, D = any social or psychological benefit you derive from voting, and C = the cost of voting.

p is almost always some very small, non-zero number, so pB is effectively zero. Basically comes down to your sense of civic duty outweighing the costs of voting.

I knew taking social choice theory would come in handy one day. Thanks, Heckelman.

I still vote religiously.
 
deaconson said:
That when you play your "steal a vote" card?
Click to expand...
1. "They're going to steal the election"
2. We didn't win
3. "They stole the election!"
 
Yeah, but my joke was that you actually got to steal a vote from someone like a reality competition or something.

My crazy uncle Beau is following tucker in russia and imma gonna need to take that vote, flip it, and reverse it.
 
I'm in a swing state, so yes?

Probably an almost 0% chance that the state is decided by one vote, so no?

Part of the reason I do the door knocking and get out the vote work is because my one little vote feels so small. But it's not like any of that is going to swing a presidential election either.
 
Being a citizen and particularly being an active citizen is a collective experience, so worrying about one individual vote seems immaterial. Even if an election is decided by one vote, who says it's just your vote and not thousands of other non-voters.
 
Frosty said:
There's a formula for this, kinda! To determine if voting is worth it.

pB + D > C

Where p = the probability of your vote being the deciding ballot, B = the utility derived from your candidate winning, D = any social or psychological benefit you derive from voting, and C = the cost of voting.

p is almost always some very small, non-zero number, so pB is effectively zero. Basically comes down to your sense of civic duty outweighing the costs of voting.

I knew taking social choice theory would come in handy one day. Thanks, Heckelman.

I still vote religiously.
Click to expand...
The D is pretty big for me.
 
Milhouse said:
in NC perhaps. i don't like biden at all but i'm not an idiot so not willing to shit my vote down the toilet.
Click to expand...
yeah but you're really missing out on an opportunity to virtue signal on a message board.
 
I’m in CA, so definitely no on a national scale.

Even the elections where I don’t support the front running dem (Schiff), the likely alternatives are both dems (Lee and Porter) and republicans don’t get enough statewide votes to matter.
 
my vote matters to me I guess

but probably not truly influential. You need money for that, not a vote
 
My vote matters as much as anyone else's that lives in my state.

In terms of my vote single-handedly changing who represents me in Washington DC, my vote almost certainly is meaningless. But why would the expectation be that anyone's vote alone could ever have that much power in a country with hundreds of millions of people?
 
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