Explore the surprising impact of individual votes in shaping elections. Discover how your choice could influence global events, from elections to potential catastrophes. Delve into the complexities of voting behavior and the importance of being an informed voter in today's polarized landscape. Learn why rallying others to vote might sometimes be more effective than voting yourself. Finally, consider the altruistic implications of your electoral decisions and how campaign contributions can sway outcomes.
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insights INSIGHT
Vote Impact Modeling
Modeling helps estimate vote impact, as historical records are insufficient.
Statistical modeling uses polling data and election results to determine probability distributions.
insights INSIGHT
Factors Influencing Vote Impact
Your vote's impact is inversely proportional to the square root of total voters.
Statisticians use this, polling data, and past results to model election outcomes.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Gelman's Election Modeling
Andrew Gelman modeled US presidential elections, finding varying vote impacts.
Safe states like California have near-zero impact, while swing states in close elections can reach 1 in 3 million.
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In 'Democracy and Political Ignorance', Ilya Somin explores how widespread political ignorance affects democratic processes, including voting behavior and public opinion. He argues that this ignorance can be mitigated by limiting government scope and promoting decentralized decision-making. The book offers a critical examination of democratic governance and proposes reforms to enhance civic education and informed decision-making.
Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles.
In this one — How much does a vote matter? — I investigate the two key things that determine the impact of your vote:
• The chances of your vote changing an election’s outcome
• How much better some candidates are for the world as a whole, compared to others
I then discuss what I think are the best arguments against voting in important elections:
• If an election is competitive, that means other people disagree about which option is better, and you’re at some risk of voting for the worse candidate by mistake.
• While voting itself doesn’t take long, knowing enough to accurately pick which candidate is better for the world actually does take substantial effort — effort that could be better allocated elsewhere.
Finally, I look into the impact of donating to campaigns or working to ‘get out the vote’, which can be effective ways to generate additional votes for your preferred candidate.
If you want to check out the links, footnotes and figures in today’s article, you can find those here.
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