Lately Gene Callahan has been writing articles exposing the sheer silliness of the conventional American view of democracy. Now, since my father’s retirement, I have had to find a new professional role model, and naturally I have decided to be just like Gene Callahan when I grow up. Consequently, I will spend this article trying to convince you, gentle reader, that you should stop wasting your time at the voting booth.

One Man Can’t Make a Difference

Contrary to popular belief, your vote does not matter, and you cannot make a difference. Before I argue this point, let’s change the context so we’re not biased. Suppose your coworker takes off some time on November 2, in order to drive out to the woods and carve "GWB" on a tree. When he got back to work, you would naturally ask him what in the world he was doing. Suppose he answered, "Oh, I really feel that George Bush will take this country in a better direction than Kerry would."

At this point, you would point out that carving Bush’s initials on a tree doesn’t affect which person becomes president; regardless of how much better your coworker considers Bush, his actions were still ludicrous.

Well folks, it’s the exact same thing with voting. There is just about a zero percent chance that your vote will make a difference in whether Bush or Kerry is elected. The only way that your vote can matter is if the Electoral vote is close enough so that the Electoral votes in your state determine the race, and if the popular vote in your state is decided by a margin of exactly one.

This last part is crucial, so let me elaborate: Even if the rest of the Electoral votes are close enough, so that whichever candidate wins your home state wins the election, your vote still would not matter if Bush got (say) 10 million votes in your state, while Kerry got 9,999,998. Suppose you are a Bush supporter. Then even if you had stayed home and not cast your vote for Bush, he still would have won the popular vote in your state (by one) and hence the election. Suppose you are a Kerry supporter. Even though you cast your vote for him, Bush still won. So clearly you could have stayed home and been better off.

Thus we see that the act of voting confers virtually no benefit, as far as influencing the outcome of the election. So if you want to say that you like to vote because it makes you feel important, or because it’s sorta neat inside those little booths, fair enough. But if you say that you’re voting this time because the election is an important one, well, that’s as silly as carving a candidate’s initials in a tree.

Thinking on the Margin

Of course, the above reasoning – in terms of expected benefits and costs – is just a particular example of thinking "on the margin." Although it seems selfish and unprincipled, it’s actually the way individuals engage in all other types of behavior, too. Sure, most parents are very concerned about their children’s safety, but that doesn’t mean they prohibit their kids from riding in an automobile. No, on the margin the parents decide that the expected benefits from riding in the minivan (as opposed to other forms of transportation, or just staying home) outweigh the expected costs (i.e., things that could go wrong, such as a car accident). And notice that the likelihood of an accident is certainly a crucial consideration: the safety-conscious parent may insist on seat belts, or prohibit the child from riding with certain irresponsible friends. These moves in no way contradict the parent’s equally dogmatic insistence that the child ride the school bus everyday.

In the same way, even if you are a political junkie, who watches CNN nonstop and checks LRC every single day, it doesn’t follow that you should go vote. Your time would be far better spent (in terms of its likely effects on the outcome of the election) writing a Letter to the Editor of your paper, or calling people up randomly and trying to talk politics. It’s true, you might scoff at these suggestions as obviously worthless, but that’s the point – casting your vote is worth even less.

Third Party Candidates

The average person actually has no problem using the cost and expected benefit approach when it comes to third party candidates. Just about everyone will admit that Kerry and Bush are terrible, in an absolute sense, and that (whether from the Green or Communist or Libertarian Parties) there is some third party candidate who is much preferable. So why don’t they vote for those candidates, who much more accurately "represent" the voter? "Oh, he doesn’t stand a chance of winning. If I vote for him, I’ll just be throwing my vote away."

Ahh, but once you say that, you’ve given away the game. Because clearly, Ralph Nader could win, in the sense that’s it’s both logically and even physically possible. The person who says "Nader can’t win" really means, "I am absolutely certain that other voters will overwhelmingly pick Bush or Kerry, such that my vote for Nader would not help him win."

Okay, are you still with me? Good. Now take that exact same reasoning, and ask yourself why you are still voting for Bush or Kerry. Is it because you predict that other voters will pick Bush and Kerry with such a close margin that your vote will help either of them win?

Of course not. Everyone knows that his or her vote will not, on the margin, do anything. So if you’re voting because you think your vote makes a difference, why in the world aren’t you voting for the "best person for the job"? Rather than picking Bush or Kerry, you should write in "Lew Rockwell" or "Jerry Falwell" or "Howard Stern," depending on your views. That would make just as much sense.

Cynical?

Of course, even though the reader may be compelled to admit a certain plausibility and consistency with my arguments, it seems like I’m leaving something out. After all, aren’t there all sorts of things where the cynic says, "What can one man do?" and yet, society benefits from those who realize the power of the individual?

Yes, but that’s because in those cases, the cynics are wrong. For example, Jesus of Nazareth certainly showed the power of one man, even a poor, officially uneducated one. To take a secular example, the people who write for LewRockwell.com certainly feel that we are "making a difference," even though the power brokers in Washington would laugh at our "purity" and our ultimate hope in the power of reason.

But these aren’t examples of violations of marginal thinking. No, the reason I write articles (for example) is that, no matter what, I know there are at least a few people who read them and actually alter their opinions because of them. (Perhaps they don’t change their mind overall, but they realize they need to alter their arguments to take care of my nitpicking observations.) To pick an even more mundane example, if I pick up some litter from the sidewalk, well, the area is that much cleaner, even though a cynic might think, "No matter how much I try to clean up, others will just litter, so what’s the point?"

In contrast to all this, though, pulling the lever for Kerry or Bush really won’t do anything. Given what everyone else is doing, your decision to vote for your preferred candidate (of the two) or to abstain instead, makes absolutely no difference. If your candidate wins, he would have done so without you, and if he loses, then your vote obviously was a waste.

"What If Everyone Thought Like That?"

We now come to the final objection. In certain areas, such as deciding on a college major or picking a spouse, the economist’s self-centered, cost-benefit approach makes sense. You wouldn’t say to a college junior, "Oh, don’t major in engineering. If everyone did that, there would be no farmers and we’d all starve to death."

Yet when it comes to voting, for some reason this type of argument is considered perfectly valid. Rather than focusing on what the individual can truly control, the issue is shifted so that the individual is now analyzed as controlling the votes of millions of people. That’s why it is apparently a valid argument to say, "I really think Kerry would be awful, so I’m going to vote for Bush."

Ironically, the argument for voting doesn’t hold up even here. If you want to be "principled" about it, and act in a pseudo-Kantian way by doing that which you wish everyone else to do, then you should go vote for the "best person for the job." Then, when your more pragmatic friends tell you that they’re going to vote for Bush or Kerry instead, rather than your candidate (whom they admit would be preferable), you can shake your head and say, "If everyone acted like you, then our troops would be stuck in Iraq for another ten years. That’s why you should do the principled thing and vote for Pat Buchanan [or whomever]."

Before ending this section, let me mention one other passing observation. The same people who can’t believe my impudence and irresponsibility for failing to vote in the presidential election, generally have no problem not voting in state or local elections. Yet your vote has a much better chance of mattering here, and you have a much better chance of actually knowing what you’re doing since the issues are closer to home!

Conclusion

I hope I have now convinced the reader of two things. First, your individual vote really will do nothing at all to influence the outcome of the election. Second, the various types of arguments you could muster to answer the first point, could also be used to show why you should not vote for Bush or Kerry, but for the candidate who you really think ought to be in the White House.

Finally, for those of you who think that nobody should be in the White House – that it is both immoral and absurd to vest such immense responsibilities and the power to steal and kill in the hands of one individual – then obviously you should vote for nobody. And if you start to feel pangs of guilt, remind yourself that, when faced with two admitted evils, the truly principled thing to do is abstain.

September 7, 2004

Bob Murphy [send him mail] has a PhD in economics from New York University, and is the author of Minerva. See his personal website at BobMurphy.net.