Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Originally posted by: Psychosylph
Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Originally posted by: crazygal
1 vote doesn't make a difference whatsoever so it shouldn't matter what I vote 😉
I live in Florida so I can tell you straight up you're wrong
😉 Every vote mattered even if these old raisins down here are too old to even punch the chad all the way or figure out how to vote for the guy they want
😛
Actually, I agree with crazygal; one vote does not, and likely never will, make any difference. Even in an election that was that hotly contested, the difference was in the thousands, not in the single digits. One man/woman can make a difference by influencing a large block of voters, but a single vote is
EXTREMELY unlikely to ever make a difference.
And, just to make it a bit more entertaining and ironic, every one of those people who did vote for Gore in Florida and made it so close had their votes discarded when the Electoral College gave all of Florida's electoral votes to Bush.
Just not a process I am particularly fond of...
This part of
Chowderhead's post covers the issue nicely
Elections sometimes can hinge on one vote
Eatontown Election Decided by a Coin Toss
Various Elections decided by One Vote My point was that there are perhaps thousands of potential voters in Florida who feel the same as crazygal does that would have made a difference if they had voted. either by making the margin more decidely for Bush or electing Gore president. It's all about the philosophy not the statistical probability of one vote that makes me believe that every vote is important
😉
Actually, most of those are poor examples. About 75% of them refer to votes by legislatures, which are very small samples in which the selected few can make a difference; keep in mind these were elected officials voting on an issue, not a general election. Especially poor is the one about the impeachment; that vote was manipulated so that it would be defeated by one vote, by the combined will of the legislature, to send a pointed message to Jackson. To be quite honest, most of those examples are propaganda used to convince you that your vote is valuable.
And, to be honest, one vote can make a difference - but only in a small enough sample. Notice that the examples that were good were votes for a school council (or some such) in a very small city or county. They are actually more anecdotal in nature than practical. So, you can see that one vote can make a difference, but not in a large election - even the examples given prove that. One vote can make a difference in a small midwestern town's election for school superintendent, but it is exceedingly unlikely that it will ever make a difference on a national, state or even small to medium-sized city or county's level.
