How To Avoid Wasting Your Vote
"In the last election, I wanted to vote for ____, but I knew they couldn't win, so to avoid wasting my vote, I voted for ____ instead."
"Wisdom" has it that if you vote for a candidate that has little chance of winning, you are "wasting your vote" and, therefore, you really should vote for someone who has some chance - that is, a Republican or a Democrat. This interesting bit of "logic" is shared by the "man on the street", the college professor and the news person alike. But let us take a closer look.
Your Vote from Two Perspectives
The significance of your vote depends on the perspective from which it is viewed. Of course, votes in mass determine the result of an election and your vote from that point of view - let us call it the macro view - increases the chances of your candidate winning. But there is another way to look at the importance of your vote and that is from your own personal perspective - let us call that the micro view. Many aspects of life have widely different appearances depending on the perspective.
In politics, the election process has a decidedly different view depending on whether it is the macro view (the usual view of the soliciting politician) or the micro view (the usual view of the individual voter). The soliciting politician sees voters as a large mass in the same way as he sees a pile of sand. That is, he doesn't see millions of individual particles but one pile of sand. He would not be concerned if you removed a few grains...but if you came in with a backhoe and started to remove buckets full, he would get upset. He doesn't concern himself about individual votes. But "buckets" of votes definitely get his attention. Now let us switch to your perspective. You are not "buckets" of votes, you are just one vote. Your one vote may not mean much to the politician, but it means everything to you. Your vote is dear to you (or at least should be). You take time to become knowledgeable about the candidates and issues. However if you look at your vote from this personal, micro, point of view, you come to a rather disturbing conclusion: your vote appears to make no impact on the election results.
So, Why Vote?
From your perspective then, we have to conclude that voting for the purpose of making an impact on the election results is not rational. The only way your vote can make an impact is if there is a tie - which never happens. So the reason for voting is the satisfaction of "doing your part" for democracy. While your vote may not actually impact the election results in any way, why lose the real benefit of voting - your personal satisfaction - by voting for someone you don't really want? You truly are wasting your vote if you do not vote for your true preference.
Benefits of Honest Voting
From your micro point of view, voting for your candidate of choice gives you the major benefit from voting: personal self-satisfaction. But let us look at the macro view again. From the macro view, there is yet another good reason for voting your real choice: true popular choice is realized. How can a third party ever become established- since it must start small - if people always follow the strategy of voting only for one of the top two parties? Such a voting practice completely eliminates any chance of a third party ever becoming established. Is that what we want? I think not - but that is certainly what the two major parties want and that is why they promote the idea that voting for other candidates is wasting your vote.
From a personal point of view, an individual's tiny vote cannot impact the results of a national election. Still, we should vote and we should vote for our desired candidate. An individual who does so, will have the satisfaction of standing true to her beliefs while at the same time knowing that she has not caused either of the top candidates to win or lose. Only when you do not vote your honest choice is your vote wasted!!
Further, if we all vote honestly, new candidates and new parties have a chance of becoming established. To vote otherwise is to endanger democracy.
Mr Felkins is a retired engineer, Army officer and former teacher of computer systems.