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Is An Uninformed Vote Better Than No Vote?
ras_b asks: "I don't pay attention to politics at all, and so I will not be voting in today's elections. My family has been telling me that this is a mistake and I should vote anyway, partly because I have slightly conservative views which agrees with their political outlook. My reasoning is that since I am totally uninformed, I shouldn't vote. I don't want to vote Republican or Democrat, only to find out later I totally disagree with something a candidate stands for. So, here's my dilemma and my question: Is an uninformed vote better than no vote?" This issue is touched upon in a posting by Ezra Klein, of the The American Prospect, who disagrees, arguing against a similar assertion by Greg Mankiw, from a suppressed Fortune article. Greg says: "Sometimes...the most responsible thing a person can do on election day is stay at home ... If you really don't know enough to cast an intelligent vote, you should be eager to let your more informed neighbors make the decision." What do you think?
If you don't care, and are not going to vote. Vote for more variety, if nothing else...
I'm surpised the Mankiw piece got linked without mentioning a someone similar piece by Prof. Bryan Caplan (who himself links the Mankiw piece) that summarizes his upcoming book, The Myth of the Rational Voter.
Long story short, he argues that because people don't personally bear the cost of holding ridiculous political beliefs, they relax their standards of intellectual rigor, similar to how they do with religious beliefs. They thus use voting to appeal to their "feel good" side rather than seriously analyze the issues (like the would with, e.g. their own finances), resulting in destructive policies all-around.
So he takes Mankiw one step further and says that it's not just ignorance that's a problem, but irrationality. If it were mere ignorance, the errors would cancel. But, Caplan, claims, they don't -- they skew the wrong way.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
In America, where only two parties are given a chance at winning by the media [and thus they shape perception that way into reality], you really can't lose by voting for a 3rd party. If you aren't happy with the current system, staying home isn't getting changes put into place. But if you vote Green, or Libertarian, or Independent, you're sending a message that you don't trust mainstream politics. Imagine what would happen if 10% of the voters went for non-Democrat and non-Republican. Could politicians really believe that that many millions of Americans don't deserve to be represented in Congress or the Presidency?
They'd HAVE to change the system to a more fair electoral system.
Oh You POS
So, you know that your vote has no effect in the grand total of millions. Why not vote your conscious? You'll know that you did the right thing.
I have been a registered independent all of my voting life. I did not run (and if nominated would not), nonetheless I am informed that I have received vote(s) for a Congressional seat.
If elected I would serve under the same sort of social ethics that motivate me to remove stranger's garbage cans from the middle of the road, but frankly the idea gives me the fucking willies.
From my personal perspective I think the essential problem is not so much getting independents elected, but getting them to run. The same reasons that make them independent make them disinclined.
Plato had something to say about this.
KFG
If you check polls from 2004, you will find that Bush voters were more likely than Kerry voters to be wrong about Bush's positions, and that independent voters were often wrong but wrong less often than Bush supporters. There's no reason to assume the uniform distribution.
well, alot of us held our noses and voted for him because we didn't think kerry got it regarding the war. we also hoped and prayed that he would leave his big spending, federal takeover of everything, ruinous trade and immigration policies. but alas, we've been hoodwinked. and now he's not even fighting an agressive war. I want my money back!!!
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
This election, I voted on the on the candidates and propositions, but abstained (left them blank blank) on deciding whether to keep or oust the laundry-list of judges and other unrecognized names. My reasoning is that while I know enough to vote on the issues that matter, I know nothing (and care little) about the the head of the school board. It there's strong reason to vote either way, then I figure that those familiar with the issue will do so; I don't want to dilute the potency of their vote by casting an a vote at random.
In the previous vote, I had simply voted for "what sounded good" on the issues I'd never heard of, and as a result ended up voting the wrong way on some important issues because the wording on the ballot was severely deceptive (though that's a topic for another discussion).
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
A dumb person who know that there's a rattlesnake in my sleeping bag might be more important to listen to than a smart person who doesn't.
That said, anyone who can go this far without understanding the basic political temperaments of the parties is someone who doesn't know which sleeping bag has the rattlesnake.
The problem with your initial argument is that the demands of historical precedent are satisfied by turning in a blank ballot, thus exercising your right, without actually voting.
/. politics thread.)
As for your second argument, I'm just going to say that someone a lot more authoritative on the issue than yourself grants unconditional right to complain about any political desire you wish, regardless of wether or not you vote. It's generally referred to as the first amendment to the US Constitution, and technically it isn't even limited to people who can vote.
Regarding your third point, we're not a democracy, we're a republic: it's not a system to bring the will of the majority on every issue, it's a system to place the correct people in power to make the correct judgements while preventing abuse of governmental power. Frankly, I'm rather glad of this, given my experience with the political ignorance of the average citizen. (Preceding assumes that you're in the USA, which seems reasonable given that you refer to 'congress' and not, say, 'parliament', use american syntax, and are on a
Regarding your advice on selecting a party to vote for, I provide the simple counterexample of switching from, say, republican to democrat: your strategy just failed, because you voted for a clone of the party already in power. You have to be reasonably informed to even select a party that would cause some sort of policy change.
And, finally, no, voting does nothing to improve voter informedness of itself. In fact, simple proportioning tells us that the more issues you cast a vote on, the less time you will spend on average considering each issue, since there is a finite span of time for each election and assumably you spend what you can spare in either case.
Rebuttal complete. Do I get a cookie or something? 'cause I'm starving over here.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
The original poster raises some good points. However, a close friend of mine recently wrote a rather extensive paper on this subject. He detirmined through research (I didn't write the paper, so I couldn't tell you what his sources were) that when people vote because they feel they have to, it skews the election because people in this demographic tend to vote for candidates based on reasons other than the issues. Personal appearance, or just the sound of a name play an important role here.
He also detirmined that overall, it's better if you don't feel strongly about the election that you don't vote. The analogy he used when explaining it to me was this:
Let's say that an office is throwing a party, and the host wants to know if he should serve peanuts or potato chips, so he sends around a survey giving the people attending the option to check either peanuts or potato chips. Let's also say that 50 people are going to the party, 40 don't really care whether peanuts or chips are served, 3 strongly favor chips, and 7 people are allergic to peanuts.
With the survey passed around all 50 people are forced to make a choice between peanuts and chips. While 40 of them don't actually have a preference, by forcing them to choose, it is possible that peanuts will win the vote, leaving the 7 people with a peanut allergy very unhappy.
However, if only those who cared strongly about the issue voted, chips would definitely win, the 40 people who didn't have a preference wouldn't be displeased, and only the 3 people would be unsatisfied. By limiting the voting population to those who strongly cared about the issue, more people overall were happy.
So, don't just vote because you feel you have to, vote because you care about the issues you're voting for. When you vote because you feel it is your duty, you skew the data, and it is possible that overall fewer people will be happy with the result.