No, Seriously, Your Vote Doesn’t Matter

In 2016, while listening to Spotify, I heard an ad from Barack Obama. I can’t remember it verbatim, but it was something like: ‘when I hear people say your vote doesn’t count, I get fired up.’

It’s a carefully chosen phrase. Your vote absolutely counts, but it doesn’t matter. Yes, you’ll change the total number of people who voted for one candidate, but you won’t change the outcome.

I Know What You’re Thinking

Okay, time to talk about objections. We’ll start with the most common one. ‘If everybody thought that way…’ But everyone doesn’t think that way. Hardly anyone thinks that way. More importantly, if you decide to start thinking that way, the entire world won’t automatically follow you. This isn’t very hard to get in contexts where people aren’t emotionally involved. For example, suppose you’re a doctor. If everybody decided they wanted to be a doctor, competition for doctor jobs would be even more insane than it is now, and no other job in society would be filled. It’d be horrible. But it’s absurd to think of that possibility when choosing an occupation. Nobody ever worries that their decision to become a doctor will magically translate into the rest of society enrolling in medical school. Somehow, though, people always seem to get stuck on the voting thing.