We have been told all of our lives that voting is our civic duty. However, when the polls close this Tuesday, will it matter whom we voted for? The population is large, misinformed, and apathetic, and the legislator’s primary concern is self-perpetuation. The current system is not worth buying into, so cast your vote by not voting.
Mathematically, a vote is just not worth as much as it was in 1789, even as a tiebreaker. What is the likelihood that you, an informed constituent, would cast this vote? According to a Berkeley study, the probability of this occurrence can be approximated by the function 13/N (N being the total number of votes cast). Assuming the average voter turnout over the last three midterm elections (about 41.3 percent) in a congressional district of about 700,000 people, for instance, the probability that your vote breaks the tie in a House of Representative race is 0.0045 percent. That 0.0045 percent is the most potent your vote will ever be, and the probability of giving birth to triplets is still about 30 times greater.
Potential vote influence is even lower in statewide Senate races. Take California, the most populous state in the Union. The probability that your vote breaks a tie in a Senate race is 0.000082 percent. You are about 100 times more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime. Try Michigan. You will find the probability to be about 0.00032 percent. It is greater than California’s, but you are still about 25 times more likely to be struck by lightning.
Now, this 50/50 scenario is the very best environment for your vote — that in which your vote carries the most weight. When the victories are clearer, say a win by 10 to 20 percent, the influence of your vote falls down into numbers so small as to be irrelevant.
This improbability of one person influencing an election leads to something called the “rational ignorance effect,” in which a voter has little to no incentive to seek out information to cast an informed vote. Additionally, the sources of information readily available are dwindling in integrity.
The media, in their quest for ratings, have become so sensational that constituents are hard-pressed to formulate an accurate picture of exactly what kinds of policies a candidate will stand for. The candidates themselves employ heavy rhetoric that pulls at the heart strings but has very little factual foundation. This creates a misinformed, politically bankrupt public. A University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) paper put it this way: “Citizens can only use facts if the political system disseminates them. The American political system fares poorly on this count. Those best positioned to provide relevant facts, elected officials and members of the media, lack the incentive to do so.”
As a result, politicians today no longer represent the people. Their greatest concern is getting reelected, not governing. Thus, they represent labor unions, PACs, and the like. This is due to the “special-interest effect”: Politicians will legislate policies which levy widespread costs that are relatively low on their individual constituents, if it means they can bestow concentrated benefits on a concentrated group. For example: If a particular policy causes 100,000 people to lose a dollar, but leads to $100,000 being directed toward teachers, the people who lost a dollar will not care. The teachers’ union, however, will benefit greatly and most likely will respond in kind by endorsing the politicians who voted for that policy. There is simply greater incentive for politicians to serve interest groups than there is to serve all of their constituents. If our government is not fulfilling its duty to represent us, are we obligated to fulfill our civic duty to vote?
Some believe that the only way we can bring about change is to elect the right people to office. This is a very lazy mindset. Simply electing the “right people” could bring about temporary change, but real lasting differences begin at the grassroots. If you want change, go out and win the battle of ideas with your family and neighbors. Improving the mindset of the populace is the only way to begin producing leaders who are concerned with what truly matters in the legislature: Representing their voters.