You're More Likely to Die En Route to Vote Than Influence Outcome

"Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney" (braddelaparker) 11/04/2014 at 10:13 • Filed to: None

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Written by an old buddy of mine for Forbes. It's a little bit tongue in cheek, and he acknowledges the issues with the data he's using, but it's refreshing to see someone not pandering to "go vote no matter your position" when they don't actually believe that.

You've probably been bombarded with celebrity-ridden "Get Out The Vote" videos the past few weeks. However, on an individual level, those ads are largely encouraging wild goose chases.

This is because It's astronomically unlikely your vote will ever "count" (i.e. swing the result of an election). The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! claim you have a 1-in-10 million chance of being the deciding vote in an election, and that's only if you live in a swing state and if you vote for one of the two major parties. Overall, the estimate is !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

Thus, it's almost 100 percent assured that you could flip your vote in nearly every state-wide election for your entire life and every outcome would be the same. As !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , telling someone they can't complain about an election if they didn't vote is akin to telling a homeless person that they can't complain about being poor unless they play the lottery every day.

Thinking this way, let's applying a cost-benefit analysis. If the odds of something positive coming from voting (impacting an election in your favor) are so astronomically small, what are the odds of something negative, namely… death ?

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Here are some very rough back-of-the-envelope calculations on traffic fatalities:

In the 2010 midterm elections, there were 86,784,957 votes cast. In those elections, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of votes were cast in regular or early voting respectively by constituents who went to a physical voting center, leaving us with 61,704,104 physical voters. (The remainder voted absentee or mail-in.)

We'll use the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! as a proxy for the percentage of in-person voters who travel to the polls by car, leaving us with 53,065,530 car-driving voters. With a median distance to a voting location of 0.69 miles (round trip 1.38 miles), this means there are 73.2 million "voting miles."

Last year, Americans drove !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and in 2012 had !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! motor vehicle deaths, giving a death rate of one every 88.5 million miles. This gives an expected value of 0.828 "voting deaths" by motor vehicle accidents every midterm election, or about 1-in-64.1 million odds of traffic fatality given that you're driving to vote—nearly identical to the 1-in-60 million odds of flipping an election.

It should again be stressed that these calculations are extremely rough estimates and intended much more for amusement than for rigorous scientific study. Also, there are several reasons this fatality rate is likely an overestimate:

A !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! occur on interstates or roads with speed limits greater than 55 m.p.h., and with the median distance to polling locations at 0.69 miles, it can be assumed that most commuters did not need to travel on high speed roads.

Many voters will likely vote on their way to work or another destination, meaning the percentage of total vehicle miles devoted specifically to voting travel is an overestimate.

Those living further away from polls will have !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , meaning a higher proportion of voters will be those living nearer their polling locations and thus traveling less. However, this error is mitigated by the fact that we used the median rather than mean distance in our initial calculation.

At the same time, while not everyone drives to their poll location, there could certainly be pedestrian, bike, or public transportation deaths. Also, you are far more likely to be injured rather than killed in an accident, and there are much higher rates of fender benders or flat tires. And then there are the unavoidable costs of gas and time standing in line.

This is not to say that in the (extremely likely) chance your vote doesn't change the outcome of an election that it's entirely worthless. A vote for a particular candidate, even a losing one, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that candidates in future elections may be marginally more swayed to reflect with each additional vote it received in the past. (As Brennan points out, though, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .)

And of course, this analysis only applies to state-wide elections for president or U.S. senate. For smaller elections such as mayor or district attorney, one has a much greater likelihood of having an impact on the result (albeit still extremely small).

Nevertheless, it's quite remarkable that so many tens of millions of Americans voluntarily choose to go out of their way to wait in line and vote each year when the upside is so negligible. To call a "Get Out The Vote" videos a death wish is obviously highly inaccurate, but it's nearly just as apt as describing such ads as a motivation in selecting your national politicians.

You're Just As Likely To Die En Route To Vote Than To Impact An Election Outcome

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KillerRaccoon - Group J's Sébastien Loeb > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 11/04/2014 at 10:16

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... really do go out and vote, though. If enough people (usually young adults) all think their vote won't influence anything, there goes their voice.

Diesel > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 11/04/2014 at 10:23

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More left leaning liberal bullshit propaganda to keep you from voting so they can stay in charge. Or, right leaning conservative nonsense, if that's your kind of thing.

Jayhawk Jake > KillerRaccoon - Group J's Sébastien Loeb 11/04/2014 at 10:27

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The system needs to change. I don't know how, and I don't know that it ever will, but I know I personally feel that no matter how I vote I won't properly be represented. Not to mention that even if someone did propose a change chances are we would have to vote on it, ultimately just perpetuating the notion that a single vote doesn't matter

whatisthatsound > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 11/04/2014 at 11:02

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I didn't think I would read something so silly this early in the day, but here it is.

ACESandEIGHTS > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 11/04/2014 at 11:02

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Heh, this is kind of a horseshit-filled Twinkie, albeit a fairly interesting shit snack. The statistic being used here— your likelihood of being the single deciding vote in an election —is garbage. Let's say you beat the odds and were the actual deciding voter: your "deciding vote" would probably be crushed in a recount as the other side steamrolls over the results by declaring 2% of your side's votes invalid. Or, more likely, your vote is declared meaningless as the vote is held again under greater scrutiny. So basically your individual vote will always be worthless even if it succeeds in your pushing your side to victory on the first try.

Your vote is worthless if the non-candidate population equals three and you're the minority.

Your vote is worthless if the only votes are you and your opposing candidate's vote and the run-off method is a coin flip ( which is an actual mind-blowing possibility ).

Et cetera ad nauseum. Funny thing though: make these microcosms instead macrocosms (100 vote R, 100 vote D, and now your vote means the coin-flip victory was not to be an outright victory for either side) and you start to see that nobody's vote is worthless.

Are these races often robbed of meaning by the fact that gerrymandering can create artificial landslides, or the fact that people tend to move to communities of like-minded individuals , thereby making tight races all the less likely? Guess that depends on whether you think every race should be a nailbiter. But screw that. The oddsmakers tell you it's hopeless for your side to win, until the polls are proved incorrect. Or, on the flipside, the drubbing transforms you into an activist. Or the repeated drubbings hasten your move to a more like-minded neighborhood. So it's voting as a learning experience. That's worth something, cynics.

Does it provide a tangible "upside," as mentioned in the article? Well, is the abstract "freedom" you achieve by participating in your republic easily measured in quantifiable terms against the price of gasoline? No, but let the armchair elites tell you it doesn't and you really do lose your voice. Don't listen the oil man and his marketing team. Don't listen to the tweed-jacket-with-elbow-patches-wearing, pipe-smoking academic. Do what you feel is right whatever the fuck you want. Free country, etc. etc. Like Diesel said.

pyramidofgreatness > KillerRaccoon - Group J's Sébastien Loeb 11/04/2014 at 11:12

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Electoral College —- IT DOESN'T MATTER.

Tohru > Diesel 11/04/2014 at 22:19

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"More political bullshit nonsense" is a good catch-all.