Why wouldn't one vote?

It takes my time. My one vote will have less of an impact on my life than the time to vote will impact my life.
I don’t know who to vote for. I think it would take a long time to decide.
Both sides often have good arguments. I still don’t know which one.
For the president, doesn’t the electoral college determine the winner anyway?

What I would like to know is, other than “it’s the right thing to vote” and “it’s your duty to vote”, why would anybody vote? Surely they realize the miniscule likelihood that their vote makes a difference.

Aliens.

The belief that the choices you are voting for are not sufficiently different to make the exercise worth the effort.

I vote that we give city_data_forum a week timeout here before each election to free up some of their time so they can read a voters pamphlet.

Idiots.

General apathy towards politics.

The belief that, with the way the system currently works, votes do not actually have any impact on the state of affairs, and a single vote even less impact, so why put the time and energy into something pointless.

The belief that if you don’t vote for any of the choices, you cannot be held accountable for the choice that wins out turning out poorly.

I have no idea, but it drives me crazy that one of my brothers and his wife never vote but yet want to bash the Obama administration at every turn. Get off your butts and vote if you want to make a difference or keep your pie hole shut.

Well I’ve always thought it to be completely ridiculous to believe that your votes make an actual difference however, I still vote. I do not believe in the two party system and politics continue to let America down on an almost daily basis.
I do keep up with who is who, if you don’t you can’t properly complain about what is going on.
I think you are pretty much a moron if you don’t vote because the media covers those lines and numbers fairly accurately. I also think you are pretty much a moron if you think your vote counts.
The political powers to be will have who they want in office if the Bush/Brother in Florida thing did not already prove that.
Also, they claim to count the over seas votes from soldiers and tourists and workers. That is bullshit as well.

Exactly, Chyna. Before the last election my husband and I were engaging in some spirited political conversations (we were mostly on the same side, BTW.) After about 3 days I once stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence and asked, “Are you registered to vote?”
He says, “No…”
I said, “Well why are we even having this conversation?!” And shut it down. Which means I won EVERY argument! : ) Well, he likes to argue and he doesn’t like to lose (even when he’s wrong) so he got himself registered to vote pronto! : ) He was surprised at the feeling of pride he felt in himself because of it.

It’s a waste of time.

“Don’t vote, it only encourages the bastards!” is one of my mottoes.

apathy

Foolishness.

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”
—Pericles

Damn, it’s too late to edit, but my answer above should include the following: those aren’t the reasons I don’t vote (because, I always vote) but reasons I’ve heard from a couple friends.

I can logically see all the points above for not voting. They make sense. But, this is our system, tragically flawed as it is.

But like any system you are a part of (a household, a place of work, a community, a country), your job IMHO is to work (in some way) to make it better. This includes voting.

And, as @chyna said, if you don’t vote, you have no business complaining about the results.

Nothing worse than flapping pie holes.

Because I enjoy sitting back and chuckling at this whole mess and I’m a lazy bastard who doesn’t want to be bothered with even the possibility of jury duty.

Besides, if there were ever a decision that didn’t sit right with me, it’d probably result in a call to arms, not a pen and a ballot.

My parents used to live in Venezuela, so they weren’t registered and after that, we moved around so much that it wasn’t worth it to try. Now that we’ve been living in one place for awhile, they registered just in time for the last presedential election, but we may move to Switzerland soon, so that would ruin it again.
So this is the reason my parents don’t vote and I’m sure others have had this happen to them.

Opportunity cost.

If you don’t vote you have just as much business complaining about the results as someone who does vote.

@city_data_forum I would like to hear your reasoning behind that statement.

Busy. Sick. Don’t like the candidates. Don’t know the candidates. Think voting makes no difference.

Personally, I missed the last election because I was sick. First one I’ve missed in a long long time.

I always vote but apart from the reasons people have given above, I think sometimes choosing not to vote is a conscious decision. A political choice or protest.

In Australia voting is compulsory. Donkey votes (where the voter just numbers there ballot paper from 1-xxx without any consideration of who they are actually voting for) is estimated to account for 2% of the vote at a federal election. Around 5% of votes cast are informal (blank, scribbled on, ticked instead of crossed, defective numbering). Even if you force people to vote, some will find ways to avoid it.

I personally do not like compulsory voting. I would prefer people to show up at the ballot box because they want to have a say and have at least considered their choice.

By your reasoning, @chyna, the Occupy protesters that we’ve been seeing for the past several months should all be voters in order to be at all legitimate, right? I doubt if their voting record even equals that of the general population. And all non-citizens and protesters under age 18 can be ignored out of hand?

“If you don’t vote you have just as much business complaining about the results as someone who does vote.”

It’s a free country. People who don’t vote have no less rights to complain than people who do vote.

@city_data_forum I don’t think anyone is saying that people who don’t vote don’t have the literal, legal right to complain. Rather, it tends to be that if you don’t vote, how much that complaint is legitimate and should be considered by others is diminished, just like all other times in which people only complain and do nothing to resolve the problem they complain about. It’s your basic “put up or shut up” argument.

Some of you say it doesn’t make much of a difference. Look at how close the Obama vs. McCain election was!! If 50% of a population didn’t vote because they didn’t think it would “make a difference” but then voted one year, it would make a world of a difference! Everyone counts. It could come out to only a few thousand votes, you never know. It makes me sick to hear of people who don’t care, either. Get yourself educated on the election, make a decision, and vote.

I don’t think you quite understand why “it doesn’t matter”, @babybadger. How much different do you think our government and current problems would be if McCain had been elected instead of Obama? I doubt that things would be much better – or worse.

The problem that I see is that we cede too much power to politicians as it is. The 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution should be observed; the government is not expected or intended to “run the country” nearly to the extent that it does.

@babybadger besides, that was the popular vote which means little. Presidency depends on electoral votes so once again out votes as citizens meant jack shit

@CWOTUS Most of us are intending to vote. You might even be surprised who for.

I dont vote because since I have been old enough to there hasn’t been someone running that I would prefer to run our country over the other, I think that they have all been horrible choices and I wont be a part of the portion that choose one of them. When there is a person I think that will be good enough to take our beloved country into their hands then I will register, vote and support the hell out of them.

I also agree with @city_data_forum. Whether someone votes or not it is still their country that this person is running. And if said person is doing a horrible job at it then those of us that didn’t vote still have the right to opinions/complaints either way. Just because we didn’t vote doesn’t make it any less our country to care about or give us any less grounds to stand on when it comes to things that will effect us all. Voters and Non-Voters.

@CWOTUS I see your point, but do you think Osama bin Laden would be dead if we had elected McCain? I think the presidency matters a great deal, or at least enough to vote, but that’s just me.

I expect that Osama would be dead regardless of who was in the Oval Office, @babybadger. (How much credit do you give Obama for Osama, anyway?) But let me ask another question: Aside from his infamous past acts, do you really think bin Laden really mattered – at all? I didn’t celebrate his death any more than I regarded his life, which is to say “not a whit”.

I will give you one here: I don’t suppose Gore would have made an Iraq adventure a centerpiece of his presidency. On the other hand, what he did propose to make a centerpiece of his presidency has been consistently rejected in this country.

Osama was a terrorist. Besides that, the mere fact that his death brought this nation together for a moment was stupendous. I don’t think his death should be celebrated, but, whether the fear of him was irrational or not, the sigh of relief many people felt was good. We are rarely brought together unanimously. His death was a moment in history when we all felt patriotic.

What do you mean by Gore’s centerpiece of presidency, @CWOTUS? The environment?

What I meant was Gore’s extremist (and hypocritical) take on what it would take to “save” the environment.

That’s not what I recall as being the centerpiece of his candidacy, @CWOTUS, nor do I understand how one could read consistent support for Gore’s environmentalism (over 70% of Americans favored it in 2000) as suggesting that it is Americans—rather than their unresponsive government—that have consistently rejected his views. Then again, I suppose I didn’t join this thread to make a series of off-topic and ungrounded political jabs.

It’s a sign of ignorance or resignation.