Why I don’t vote

Your vote counts for something. Just not what you think.

If your vote — not “voting in the aggregate”, not “voting blocs”, but your vote — has no chance of deciding the election or producing a meaningful difference in margins, then reasons against voting don’t have to be terribly strong to outweigh reasons for it.

This isn’t a controversial point, not really. If I’m wondering if I should take an action and the action’s effects will be trivial at best, then if there’s even a small reason not to do it, that’s probably good enough to say “don’t.”

On Tuesday, that’s exactly the situation millions of Americans will find themselves in. Not a single one will decide the election, whether at the national, state, or local level. That’s just math. Which means every American, if presented with just a minimal reason to consider not voting ought to abstain.