I can’t take it anymore. I have heard so much mindless propaganda urging us to vote that I was forced to push back. This is like shooting fish in a barrel.
First, if voting is so great, why we do have to be constantly harangued, bullied, hectored and bribed into engaging in this marvelous activity? Why do only half or less of the population vote in any given election? Let’s ask the question a different way. What percentage of kids fail to show up when Mom says, “breakfast is ready”? They show up because they expect to receive a major benefit from showing up, especially when weighed against the minimal costs of running downstairs and grabbing a chair.
We have our answer. Most people either don’t vote or do so out of habit or inertia and with little enthusiasm because they realize that the marginal benefit of doing so is so close to zero that only a mathematician could tell the difference. The media love to tout the occasional close race decided by a few votes, however, these are rare and it is rarer still when a different result would have resulted in any real impact on the voter’s life. From the standpoint of pure logic, voting is not rational for the individual.
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Let’s say it takes only a half hour to vote and let’s say you drive three miles round trip to do so. Surely, the average American’s time is worth at least $20 per hour. The cost of driving your car for three miles is about $1.50 and that does not even factor in the risk of getting into an accident on the way or being victimized by a crime. Thus the economic cost of voting is, on average, at least $11.50. Looked at another…