The True Value of a Vote

Although Johnson highlights the economic rationale that the costs of voting in a presidential election will outweigh the expected benefits, I still firmly believe that it is ones duty as a citizen to vote in an election. One's vote is not significant in how it influences the result of the election, but in what it expresses. We are privileged to live in a democracy where the government if "of the people, for the people, and by the people."

The duty to vote however, does not mean that people should be feel pressured by society to vote for one of the two major parties. What makes a vote valuable is not the probability of changing the election, but what is says about our democracy -- that we are allowed to express our opinions. People often cite that if they don't vote for a major party candidate, they are effectively "throwing their vote away." However, this line of reasoning suggests there is no reason to vote in the first place. The expected value of your vote making an impact is almost the same no matter who you vote for -- about 0. This election year marks a particularly bad set of candidate options. Over the past year alone, Trump and Clinton have continually out done each other in giving the public reasons why they are unfit for the Presidency. Peggy Noonan from the Wall Street Journal writes that people don't want to express their voting preferences publicly because they will have to defend what their candidate has done. If this is the case for your candidate, I suggest you vote for someone else. In an election where there are historically low approval ratings, people should vote for a candidate they want to win and not default to one of the two major parties that offer a false sense of vote value. What makes a vote truly valuable is what it represents and not its impact on determining the result of the election.