2020 presidential election straw poll

[old_gregg]

But in the scenario I describe, you can't point to a single vote as being the winning vote. Thus each person that voted in favor at the very most played a role with 1/1000000 of an impact on the outcome.

"Yes, but if any of them had not voted, the outcome would have changed."
OK, what if Senator X won by 2 votes? Do all of the votes now become non-critical/insignificant?
"No, the votes were important because if only 2 people had not voted, the outcome would have been different."
Ok, what if the senator won by 5 votes? 50 votes? 500 votes?
And what about the 200,000 people who were going to vote for the other candidate but read some obscure economics article once about incremental cost/benefit analysis and decided they would rather sit on their ass and not vote?

No matter how you slice it, it is a collective effort. If voting matters, all votes matter.

i don't know where the speedbump is that's preventing you from thinking about this from the perspective of individual (not collective) economic rationality, but it's really not that complicated of a problem.

[old_gregg]

this might be helpful:

Suppose Sally’s only goal, in voting, is to change the outcome of the election between two major candidates. In that case, the expected value of her vote (Uv) is:

Uv=p[V(D)−V(R)]−C
where p represents the probability that Sally’s vote is decisive, [V(D)−V(R)] represents (in monetary terms) the difference in the expected value of the two candidates, and C represents the opportunity cost of voting. In short, the value of her vote is the value of the difference between the two candidates discounted by her chance of being decisive, minus the opportunity cost of voting. In this way, voting is indeed like buying a lottery ticket. Unless p[V(D)−V(R)]>C, then it is (given Sally's stated goals) irrational for her to vote.

There is some debate among economists and political scientists over the precise way to calculate the probability that a vote will be decisive. Nevertheless, they generally agree that the probability that the modal individual voter in a typical election will break a tie is small, so small that the expected benefit (i.e., p[V(D)−V(R)]) of the modal vote for a good candidate is worth far less than a millionth of a penny (G. Brennan and Lomasky 1993: 56–7, 119). The most optimistic estimate in the literature claims that in a presidential election, an American voter could have as high as a 1 in 10 million chance of breaking a tie, but only if that voter lives in one of three or four “swing states,” and only if she votes for a major-party candidate (Edlin, Gelman, and Kaplan 2007). Thus, on both of these popular models, for most voters in most elections, voting for the purpose of trying to change the outcome is irrational. The expected costs exceed the expected benefits by many orders of magnitude.

[Northwestcoug]

My head hurts.

[All-American]

As recent as 2000, the Presidential election came down to 527 votes in Florida.

That's a great example. In one of the closest elections ever, a single vote constituted less than one fifth of one percent of the margin of victory.

[Bo Diddley]

That's a great example. In one of the closest elections ever, a single vote constituted less than one fifth of one percent of the margin of victory.

And i wonder how many democrats were kicking themselves for not going out to vote. It wouldn't have taken very many.

[All-American]

And i wonder how many democrats were kicking themselves for not going out to vote. It wouldn't have taken very many.

It would have taken 528, to be precise. So every democrat kicking themselves for not voting would have to go find 527 other democrats and kicked them as well. At that point, all 528 of them could collectively hang their heads in shame knowing that they could have made a difference. But no single one of them, on their own, would have.

Which, again, is the point. The one individual, who knows that he will not affect the outcome, expends the individual time and individual effort to do something that does not have any individual impact. As an exercise in outcome determination, it is a waste of time. Something else is driving that decision.

[Jeff Lebowski]

this might be helpful:

Suppose Sally’s only goal, in voting, is to change the outcome of the election between two major candidates. In that case, the expected value of her vote (Uv) is:

Uv=p[V(D)−V(R)]−C
where p represents the probability that Sally’s vote is decisive, [V(D)−V(R)] represents (in monetary terms) the difference in the expected value of the two candidates, and C represents the opportunity cost of voting. In short, the value of her vote is the value of the difference between the two candidates discounted by her chance of being decisive, minus the opportunity cost of voting. In this way, voting is indeed like buying a lottery ticket. Unless p[V(D)−V(R)]>C, then it is (given Sally's stated goals) irrational for her to vote.

There is some debate among economists and political scientists over the precise way to calculate the probability that a vote will be decisive. Nevertheless, they generally agree that the probability that the modal individual voter in a typical election will break a tie is small, so small that the expected benefit (i.e., p[V(D)−V(R)]) of the modal vote for a good candidate is worth far less than a millionth of a penny (G. Brennan and Lomasky 1993: 56–7, 119). The most optimistic estimate in the literature claims that in a presidential election, an American voter could have as high as a 1 in 10 million chance of breaking a tie, but only if that voter lives in one of three or four “swing states,” and only if she votes for a major-party candidate (Edlin, Gelman, and Kaplan 2007). Thus, on both of these popular models, for most voters in most elections, voting for the purpose of trying to change the outcome is irrational. The expected costs exceed the expected benefits by many orders of magnitude.

I will repeat what I said earlier: anyone whose primary motivation in voting is to break a potential tie is an idiot and doesn't understand math. But framing the argument in this fashion is a straw man.

This is what kicked off this discussion:

By definition every vote you ever cast will be a wasted vote, no matter the candidate for whom you vote.

Listen, I understand the logic of this line of reasoning. But it only makes sense if you base it on this logical fallacy that the only votes that matter are tie-breakers.

If every vote every individual ever casts is wasted, it would make no difference to the outcome if nobody voted. Reducto ad absurdum.

[All-American]

I will repeat what I said earlier: anyone whose primary motivation in voting is to break a potential tie is an idiot and doesn't understand math. But framing the argument in this fashion is a straw man.

This is what kicked off this discussion:



Listen, I understand the logic of this line of reasoning. But it only makes sense if you base it on this logical fallacy that the only votes that matter are tie-breakers.

If every vote every individual ever casts is wasted, it would make no difference to the outcome if nobody voted. Reducto ad absurdum.

But the individual's decision doesn't affect whether others vote or not (or how they vote). The question of what would happen if everybody did the same thing I did is irrelevant. It is no logical fallacy for an individual to assume others will act one way or another irrespective of how the individual acts.

[old_gregg]

I will repeat what I said earlier: anyone whose primary motivation in voting is to break a potential tie is an idiot and doesn't understand math. But framing the argument in this fashion is a straw man.

This is what kicked off this discussion:

so why do people vote?

Listen, I understand the logic of this line of reasoning. But it only makes sense if you base it on this logical fallacy that the only votes that matter are tie-breakers.

why is that a logical fallacy? it doesn't matter if the tie consists of five million votes on each side or five.

If every vote every individual ever casts is wasted, it would make no difference to the outcome if nobody voted. Reducto ad absurdum.

it's not a reductio ad absurdum, but (1) you are conflating the collective view of the outcome vs the individual's weighing of the economic cost/benefit of casting a vote, and (2) you've accidentally stumbled on to the truth: it makes no difference in the outcome if one vote is cast or a billion votes are cast.

[Bo Diddley]

It would have taken 528, to be precise. So every democrat kicking themselves for not voting would have to go find 527 other democrats and kicked them as well. At that point, all 528 of them could collectively hang their heads in shame knowing that they could have made a difference. But no single one of them, on their own, would have.

Which, again, is the point. The one individual, who knows that he will not affect the outcome, expends the individual time and individual effort to do something that does not have any individual impact. As an exercise in outcome determination, it is a waste of time. Something else is driving that decision.

Your math checks out!

[Jeff Lebowski]

so why do people vote?

To be part of a critically important collective effort/democratic process.

[CardiacCoug]

I wrote in Mitt. Ballot sent!

After that weird rambling performance by Biden last night I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for him. The guy was dumb to start with and is clearly in a state of early dementia.

[old_gregg]

To be part of a critically important collective effort/democratic process.

agreed--they do not vote to determine the outcome of elections

[Now who’s the dean?]

I presume those are G. E. Moore’s hands clapping in your post.

Good luck proving it!!

[All-American]

agreed--they do not vote to determine the outcome of elections

Yup.