Voting matters. You’ve heard it said a million times, but many students at Hillsdale College disagree. These students declare in Saga, in class, on Facebook or Twitter that they’re not voting because their vote won’t determine the outcome of the election, the candidates are too similar, or they have better things to do. This thinking is as misguided as it is dangerous.
Your vote counts. If Republican Thomas Dewey had gotten one more vote per precinct in Ohio and California in 1948, the House of Representatives would have decided the next president. Meaning the Michigan-born Dewey probably would have defeated Harry Truman, the incumbent Democratic president. In 2000, 537 votes in Florida elected George W. Bush.
Our education has taught us not to be fatalistic. Perhaps one of the most ubiquitous messages in liberal arts classes at Hillsdale is that ideas and events have consequences. The individual has the power to affect the course of history. An election, one of the few things we do together as a nation, produces results that shape our public policy and culture. The idea that we shouldn’t vote because the fate of our country has already been decided contradicts our belief in self-government and an ordered, purposeful world.
Paradoxically, the more people believe their vote won’t affect the outcome, the less true it becomes.
But even if your vote doesn’t affect the outcome, voting still holds purpose and value. By exercising this right, we protect and ensure our other Constitutional rights. If our Constitutional rights are precious, we should participate in demonstrating our commitment to them. Thanks to this system, the United States has enjoyed 43 peaceful transfers of power. With luck, we’ll see the 44th in January.
The people I know at Hillsdale College who refuse to vote are highly informed, well-educated, thoughtful citizens. It makes no sense for the preferences of the most informed members of society not to be included in the process. But these people almost flamboyantly refuse to vote. Citizens have different subjective preferences. But on a spectrum, some candidates are closer to your preferences than others. Not voting helps ensure that the outcome will be further from your preferences. The two main-party candidates will tend toward the middle to capture the moderate voters, as Anthony Downs and the median voter theorem explain in public choice theory. This doesn’t mean there won’t be any difference between the two candidates.
By not voting, you allow people less informed and engaged to speak on your behalf. How ironic that some of those who claim to be rationally and intellectually superior to voting are content to forfeit the future of the United States to the politically ignorant or perhaps even those subject to the Dunning-Krueger effect (in which you are so incompetent you don’t realize how incompetent you are). And then, when dissatisfied with the outcome, the same people that refused to participate complain about the direction of the country. The “don’t vote, don’t complain” maxim may be trite, but how frustrating it must be to harp about issues and never do anything about it beyond “start a dialogue.”
Vote for whomever you wish. If you want to use your vote to make a statement by voting for Gary Johnson or another third-party candidate, that’s a legitimate, even admirable way of voicing your preferences. But have enough respect and gratitude for the peaceful election process to show up.
Politicians, who are subject to human nature, will disappoint us. Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, or any other candidate can’t single-handedly ensure the preservation of liberty in the United States. That’s up to us, and casting a ballot is be a good place to start.