Heroism in the Ballot Booth

The Vote – a play in three acts

Act I – You Should Not Vote

The Citizen: I look forward to exercising my right this Tuesday.

Socrates: But have you considered your duty?

TC: My duty to vote?

S: No, your duty to exercise the vote responsibly.

TC: Like I said, I will be voting.

S: The responsibility is not to cast a vote. The responsibility is to do so only if you are casting a vote responsibly. Otherwise, how could you know if the choices you are making are defensible?

TC: But all votes matter. As long as we vote, we are making a difference. We voters are taking the action.

S: Let’s suppose you are making a difference. The act of voting is not a magical incantation that by itself brings about the good. If you are not well informed and of sound reason in making your vote, your actions are irresponsible and the difference you make is a bad one.

TC: But how can I know if I am adequately well informed and of reasonable judgement?

S: You likely do not, but you can take steps to be reasonably certain that you are. However, those steps likely take great effort and a long time—months if not years. The election is in a few days. I fear you should not vote because you have not ensured that you should vote.

TC: I’m sorry, Socrates, but it is my sacred belief that I should vote. Thus, I shall be voting.

S: In that case have you considered the fact that your vote will not count?

Act II – Your Vote Does Not Matter

TC: Of course my vote will count. I trust my local election officials. They are taking extraordinary efforts to ensure that my vote will be counted.

S: I do not dispute that your vote will be counted. I dispute that your vote will count.

TC: Whatever could that mean? It seems you are stating a contradiction.

S: The tally of your vote, it’s being counted, is not at issue. What is at issue is if how you vote will affect any change. I argue that it will not.

TC: How could you know?

S: Basic math and logic. The chances that any one of your vote selections will change the outcome of its respective ballot is effectively zero. Methods and estimates vary, but a safe approximation is a single vote’s probability of deciding the outcome of an election expected to be close is about 13/N where N is the number of voters. If there are just 999 other people voting, your vote’s chances of being the decisive vote are about 1.3% or about 1 out of 77. Most elections have vastly more participation than this.

TC: But if that is the case, why would I spend any time and effort researching to make my vote responsible?

S: Ethical duties extend beyond practical reward, and if you think you should vote because you think you might affect the outcome, then you certainly should do so responsibly. Hence, there is a paradox. But that is beside the point. My point is just to explain the futility of the act of voting if the goal is to change the outcome of the election.

TC: What if everyone followed your advice? Then no one would vote.

S: No, then I would vote to determine the outcome of all elections. Or more accurately people would vote; hence, another paradox. The fact remains, though, many people will reliably vote. Enough people that we can always expect no single vote will matter. The lesson is if you value your time and have any other alternative option on how to spend it, you shouldn’t waste your time voting.

TC: So you would have me sit home, go to the park, or do something else in my selfish interest rather than spend that time voting. It seems you are setting me up for criticism of not fulfilling my civic duties. Have you not heard of social desirability bias?

S: I certainly have and will ignore the hypocrisy in confounding civic duty and social desirability. Your civic duty is not to vote no matter what your fellow citizens may claim. We have covered that, but to restate: your civic duty is that if you do vote, you do so responsibly. I would have you vote, actually. But I ask that you do so for a better reason than to change the election—a task you cannot possibly hope to achieve.

TC: Pray tell what is the reason?

Act III – This Is Why and How You Should Vote

S: To cast a vote you are indicating support for one thing relative to another. But you are also expressing absolute support for one thing—the thing for which you vote affirmatively. A vote for something or someone is always a vote for that thing or person regardless of if you actually desire simply a vote against the opposing option(s).

TC: That is not how I always see it. Often I am voting against a particular person; so I vote for the opponent.

S: There lies the mistake. You have wrongly assumed that to express your opposition means you must support your enemy’s enemy. Presumably you choose this path based on the bad assumption that your vote is deterministic. We have already covered how it is not. So we are left with the problem that in your effort to say “no” to something you have only said “yes” to something else.

TC: So you would again have me not vote?

S: Possibly. Abstention is itself a decision and an expression. It declares “none of the above”—leaving clean hands for those electing it. As the ancient wisdom holds:

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose Freewill

TC: Is that your entire point? I should vote by not voting?

S: No, that is an important but incomplete lesson. You can make a difference by voting in a traditional sense as well. Remembering that voting for something is always a vote for it not simply a vote against the opposing option(s), you can use this tool to most effectively express support.

TC: By voting third party? But that is simply throwing my vote away!

S: On the contrary a vote for one of two very popular candidates is almost certainly throwing one’s vote away—those candidates will win or lose regardless of your vote, and your vote will be lost in a sea of votes in support of each. Yet the third-party candidate will have very small support. The addition of your vote is meaningful to this fledgling candidate and the larger effort to affect change in the democracy.

TC: Buy how can I ethically go into the ballot booth deliberately casting votes for candidates I am quite certain will lose while also deliberately leaving blank a vote on other offices and issues for which I do not have sufficient knowledge or find the choices unsupportable and then face my friends, family, and colleagues letting them think I voted in a manner social norms expect me to?

S: On the latter part, I cannot help you with your courage nor can I condone dishonesty. On the former part, ethically how could you not?