on the nature of wasted votes

[rone]

I can't say when the American notion of considering third-party votes wasted began, but I'm fairly certain that the first time I saw it expressed was in the 1996 Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons. Since then, this sentiment has been augmented by the myth of Nader sucking away enough voters from Gore to tip the scales in Bush's favor. Today, this has culminated in the common plea from many to ensure the election of Hillary Clinton because of the desperate and unique existential threat that Donald Trump poses to this nation and, indeed, the world.

I will start off with a very simple declaration: no vote is wasted. Democracy, even in the misshapen state you'll find in our presidential election process, depends on every vote that is cast. Thus, every vote is crucial. To claim that one's vote is wasted because it was cast for an extremely likely loser, but isn't wasted if it's cast for the loser with the most votes, is sheerly disingenuous. To claim that voting for a third party is not only a waste, but not even a political act, as Clay Shirky tendentiously argues, condescendingly strikes at the very freedom of voting one's preference, while neatly delivering a Catch-22 of American politics: voting for one of the two big parties strengthens the two-party system in this country; voting third-party doesn't strengthen third parties, which strengthens the two-party system in this country; not voting doesn't accomplish anything, which strengthens the two-party system in this country. It is an inescapably defeatist narrative, which is usually supplemented by a smug suggestion that the only way to change the process is from within. We can see how well efforts to make the Democratic Party more progressive rather than neoliberal, or to make the Republican Party more conservative rather than regressive and nativist, have fared over the last few decades.

As for the myth of third-party candidates as spoilers, the basic premise is that third party voters somehow owe their vote to the big party that is in some way closer to their views. This is rank arrogation. You may feel that third party voters are misinformed, and perhaps misguided. You might even be right. But that doesn't make them any different than most voters for either big party; Shirky goes out of his way to impugn the motivations of third-party voters without ever questioning those of Democratic and Republican voters. Whoever we vote for will probably not accomplish what we want them to accomplish. Does that mean that our vote was wasted?

The fact is that this point can be made persuasively, as John Halle and Noam Chomsky have done already. In general, we would be better served by cogent points and dialogue, rather than sententious declarations, if not outright accusations that someone is voting wrong (or, worse, a direct appeal to fear, which is the backbone of the Trump campaign, and also informs many of my friends' appeals to vote for Clinton, as they are terrified —with good reason— of Trump).

Our vote is our voice in democracy, and it means what we want it to mean. It might not get us what we wanted it to get us, and it rarely does. But don't let anyone tell you that your vote is a waste.

Comments

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

The purpose of voting is more than just expressing your political opinion. If you want to express your political opinion you can give a speech, write an LJ post, or display a provocative sign. But voting is unique, in that it directly influences the outcome of a specific election.

If I don't cast my vote, will my vote be wasted? I think so. I have the opportunity to influence the outcome of the election, and I'm choosing not to.

If I spoil my ballot, will my vote be wasted? I think so. Destroying my ballot so that it can't be counted is less productive than casting a vote that could be counted.

If I write in "Daffy Duck", will my vote be wasted? I think so. Voting for a ridiculous imaginary candidate is essentially the same as not voting at all.

If I write in "Franklin D. Roosevelt", will my vote be wasted? I think so. Franklin D. Roosevelt would certainly be a much stronger candidate than anyone running this year, but he's not going to win because he is dead.

If I write in "repeal the second amendment", will my vote be wasted? I think so. Voting is more than simply a platform to express my political preference. Voting is a means to effect the outcome of the election.

A vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson has substantially more utility than a vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt or Daffy Duck. It's at least hypothetically possible not just that they could win, but that your vote could influence their selection. But it has substantially less utility than a vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, because it's vastly more likely that your vote will influence their selection.

This isn't an intellectual exercise. It's a near-certainty that either Clinton or Trump will win. You can either use that vote to its full potential by placing it on one side of the scale, or you can limit its potential influence by stepping back and living with the result of a choice that other people's votes have made for you.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The actual reality is that we live with the choice that other people's votes have made for us, regardless of whether we voted along with them or not. Your hypothesis only holds value for anyone who wants to feel like they won the vote, or that they lost, somehow, to the opponent.

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

> we live with the choice that other people's votes have made for us

Of course we do. Every single vote - including the votes that we've cast for winning candidates - was won almost entirely with other people's votes. The question is whether you'd like to effect that outcome, whether you'd like to opt out by not voting at all, or whether you'd like to effectively opt out of effecting that outcome by voting for a fictional (Daffy Duck), dead (Herbert Hoover), or impossibly unlikely (Jill Stein) candidate.

> Your hypothesis only holds value for anyone who wants to feel like they won the vote

I'm making an ethical argument, not attempting to explain physical evidence, so this isn't a hypothesis.

Votes are cast before they are counted. You can't retrospectively determine the utility or ethics of your voting choice based on the final outcome, because that information wasn't available when you cast your vote. But we certainly hold reasonable expectations about what's likely to happen.

My argument holds that vote utility (not value) is exclusively determined before the votes are counted, based on the apparent likelihood of the various future outcomes. My argument holds value for anyone who wants to feel like their vote effected a future outcome.

If you don't care about effecting a future outcome then my argument doesn't apply to you. But since that's literally the unique purpose of voting then maybe you don't understand voting.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Every vote affects the future outcome. Anyone who feels like their vote didn't affect the outcome doesn't understand voting.

How your vote can affect things

[prestemon (from livejournal.com)]

Your vote can affect the choice for President if it's in a state that's close in an election that's close.

The most recent example when things came down to one close state was Florida in 2000.

What happened in that case?

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/the-florida-recount-of-2000/

> Q: When the votes were recounted in Florida, who won the 2000 presidential election?
> A: Nobody can say for sure who might have won. A full, official recount of all votes statewide could have gone either way, but one was never conducted.

So, in the only recent instance where a single vote might have mattered in the outcome, our great US democracy didn't count it. If you are talking about actual votes for US President, you should look at what actually happens in the US Presidential election.