Your vote matters, example five gazillion and three: Gay Marriage in Virginia.

[riqster]

http://bluntandcranky.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/your-vote-matters-example-five-gazillion-and-three-gay-marriage-in-virginia/

" The Democratic candidate won the Virginia Attorney General’s contest last fall by 163 votes, out of 2.2 million ballots cast. That means if a couple hundred Dems had stayed home, or a couple hundred more Repubs hadn’t, the “Republican” candidate would have won. Such a teeny tiny number of people deciding to vote made all the difference.

And because of those few extra Dems, gay marriage will soon be legal in Virginia. (Marriage Equality is a better term, so we will roll with it henceforth.) That is because new AG Mark Herring will fight to get rid of Virginia’s anti-equality law. You read that right: the new AG says the state’s marriage law is unconstitutional.

So tell us again that your vote doesn’t matter, please, do tell. Whether you are a Big Government Repub who wants the the State to monitor your bedroom activities, or a Small Government Dem who thinks that you have a right to privacy, your vote counts. Your individual vote counts. Your choices matter, especially when you choose to vote or not vote.

And because a very small number of freedom-loving people chose to get out and vote last November, Virginia will soon have more freedom for its dwellers than it does today. Marriage Equality is on the way in that state. You need no more proof, Gentle Reader: your vote matters.

So get the f*** out there and vote in the next election, so you can have the government you want. The freedom you save will very likely be your own."

Source info at the link.

[FSogol]

1. Exactly. No Excuses, GOTV.

[MineralMan]

2. Absolutely. That's why GOTV 2014! is my motto.

It matters. It matters more than people might think.

GOTV 2014! and in every election.

[riqster]

3. Oh hellz yeah. Four votes in Ohio gave the Repubes total control of the state.

Four more motherfucking voters in one goddamn district, and we wouldn't be getting steamrolled today.

Every vote counts. And every non-voter hurts.

[MineralMan]

6. Yes, and third-party voters hurt as well.

These days, there are always third-party candidates, especially in state and local elections. Before voting for a Green Party candidate or a candidate from some other party, people should take a close look at the individual election. Will it be a close election? If so, then reconsider your vote for a third-party candidate. Your vote could result in the loss of the election to a Republican.

It's important to vote one's principles, but it's also important to closely examine your decision, based on the relative strengths of the candidates from the two major parties. One principal always applies: The Republican will always be far worse for progressivism than the Democrat. Always.

For issues like marriage equality, women's rights, and reproductive choice, among others, a close election should always ignore the third-party candidate and votes should be made to produce the best possible result for that election. Many elections, particularly for state legislators, local offices, and others, are close. Many elections are decided by just a few or a few hundred votes. That always needs to be considered if you're thinking about voting third-party.

Common sense needs to apply.

[riqster]

8. Very true!

[Blue_Tires]

4. It's shameful that the gay marriage ban even passed in the first place

The political fixers back in '06 were smart; shoehorning a 'definition of marriage' in the state constitution knowing full well the nation was a few short years from finally "coming around" on the issue...

[stevenleser]

5. And yet, some will tell you these votes don't matter and Dems are the same as the GOP

Of course, it's rarely those whose equality is at stake who say so.

[MineralMan]

7. Every election has a winner and a loser. In many elections, the difference

between those two results is just a small number of votes. We should all be careful not to vote in a way that hands the election to a Republican. Our votes count!

GOTV 2014 and Beyond!

[jeff47]

9. But there's no difference between the parties!!!!

People here tell me that all the time, so it must be true.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. No, your vote is almost certain to make no difference whatsoever.

I'm neither a big government Republican nor a small government dem, I'm a mathematician who thinks puffery is no substitute for numbers.



163 is a) a very unusually small margin, and b) 163 times - not 5 times, not 10, but 163 times - more than one vote.

If you can find an example of a vote being decided by a margin of 1, or a tie, then you'll have a case that there is a 1-in-the-number-of-votes-there-have-ever-been chance that your vote will make a difference. But 163 doesn't cut it.

Campaigning to persuade others to vote can conceivably make a difference - it's just about theoretically conceivable that if you work hard for a whole electoral season you might persuade 163 people who otherwise wouldn't have voted to vote, and that if the vote were as exceptionally close as this one you would then have made a difference.

But it's almost impossible to overstate how miniscule the odds of any one vote making a difference to the outcome of a statewide vote are. If you really want to spend an hour changing the world for the better on election day, working in a soup kitchen has a higher expected return than voting.

[riqster]

11. I said "to get the government you want".

I did not say "make the world a better place".

And I think your point of view is far too mathematical and insufficiently human. In the case cited, Dems did a better job of getting out the vote, and so significant changes are afoot. For all your poo-pooing of GOTV efforts, the cumulative effects of many individuals made the difference.

Because, you see, we are not isolated individuals: our actions have an effect on those around us. So it's not just, say, MineralMan interacting with single persons with no other external influences: since he is acting within a social unit, his actions change the thinking of that social unit.

If the world were a purely mathematical construct, your view might be persuasive: but it isn't, and so it isn't , respectively.

[Skinner]

14. That settles it.

Nobody should vote.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

16. Nobody should be under the illusion that there is a chance that their vote will make a difference.

That's not quite the same thing; there are other reasons for voting - a feeling of civic engagement; a desire to set an example to others so that they will vote (which it's not quite inconceivable might swing the result of an election).

But "there is a meaningful chance that your single vote will change the outcome" is not a true statement, and unless your goal is to trick people into voting (which is arguably not an unreasonable thing to do, given the stakes) then it shouldn't be promoted.

[Renew Deal]

15. Each person controls a single vote

So one can only ask for that one vote. If they had 163 votes one could ask for 163 votes. Being that each person only controls one vote, that is all that one can ask for.

[Bonx]

12. Yep. I voted for him. -nt

[riqster]

13. Thank you!