All of this assumes that the side you vote for will act in a way consistent with the values they claim to represent, which they frequently do not. As Geoff Norcott said recently when asked if he now regretted voting for a Conservative government… “I regret not getting one”.
Andrei Timoshenko
3 years ago
I think this really misses the point of voting. The value of voting is not about selecting leaders or influencing policy, but as a critical component of a system that limits the entrenchment of power. Roughly put, it says that “the cushy lifestyle of you and your friends fundamentally depends on a very large number of people not finding you to be a total bum”. While usually presented as an endorsement of a large bundle of complex decisions (no small part of which will never be implemented, of course), by and large a vote is an answer to the question “are the current halfwits in office still performing reasonably satisfactorily?”.
Thus, the value of a vote to you is the risk that the people who actually do bother to vote will not share your opinion, while the value of a vote to society is to decrease the ease with which power can be indefinitely seized by a small minority.
Alex Mitchell
3 years ago
Of course, when people say you vote matters, they’re not referring to you in the singular, but people in general to inspire a reasonable turn out. It’s a call against apathy, not for an effect. But interesting stats, nevertheless. Scott Adams wrote a short story about future elections being decided by statisticians working out which individual best represented the majority view and giving the vote to only them.
He is “surprised to learn” but I’ll wager not so surprised as to wonder how he came to be that way.
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
So what’s the better alternative? In the scope of a presidential election or Brexit referendum, one vote in and of itself won’t sway the tide. But that vote multiplied by millions of others is what a system of self-governance is all about. When legislation is passed or Supreme Court rulings come down, those too are results of that one vote some person cast.
Democracy, with its various inbuilt conspicuously ‘independent’ checks and balances is still the least worst form of government, at least when compared to all the others, as the old saying goes, but the other takeaways from this?
First off, it’s always better, for a number of reasons, when these things really aren’t that close.
Secondly, your vote might well get you the individual candidate you want in an election or to be on the ‘winning side of referendum, but neither offers any cast iron guarantees of the subsequent decisions you might want made, be they promised or not.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly and most pertinently in these troubled times, democracy is imperfect and its enduring legitimacy lays in the acquiescence of the vast majority of its losers, for good or ill.
Once that goes, however, the whole edifice starts to crumble….
Sean L
3 years ago
**First, it’s unlikely that your vote will be the one that, on its own, changes the course of an election.**
Yes, as a statement of the obvious it’s up there with the best of them.
Nick Whitehouse
3 years ago
Joe Biden is obviously old and not in the best of health. What happens if he stands down? Your calculations assume a 5% change in Government expenditure, would that be true under the new President (the VP on Biden’s ticket). Also, it is not just expenditure, what would happen to the income (GDP)? This is, of course, the problem of trying to reduce the reason for voting down to a money spreadsheet. It is not possible to quantify the changes that are possible and therefore negates the whole argument.
Mark Anderson
3 years ago
All of which presumes that at least one candidate is qualified and worthy of election. Failing that, I favor leaving the ballot blank: a “no” vote for both
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
‘Still, the Trump administration, although in general (as I understand it) a legislative and policy failure…’
Then you don’t understand much, do you? Whether you like his policies or not, Trump has delivered on more of his promises that the last five or six presidents combined. Moreover, he is the first president since Carter not to start or join a new war, or to invade another country. In January this year black and hispanic employment was at its highest level ever, partly due to Trump’s Opportunity Zones. He has also been releasing from jail some of the (mostly black) people locked up for decades, for non-violent offences, by Biden’s 1994 Crime Bill.
He has also built most of his wall/fence and overseen the signing of highly significant peace agreements in the ME. He walked with the leader of North Korea across the Korean border. It might only have been symbolic, but it was something,
‘Also, while ““ I’m surprised to learn ““ fewer immigrants have been deported per year under his presidency than under Obama’s…’
Why are you surprised to learn this? We have known for years that Obama was known as the ‘Deporter in Chief. He deported four million. He built the cages in which the (largely) trafficked children were held. (Many of those children who get through are used as child sex slaves etc, something Trump is doing something about).
Really, I despair when people who know nothing are given media platforms.
Vivek Rajkhowa
3 years ago
This just sounds like a long way of saying, the vote means f**k all.
Stephen Morris
3 years ago
It’s a curious approach, applying statistics to what’s usually measured in the abstract – of civic duty, empowerment and self worth.
Go Away Please
3 years ago
A single vote may or may not have much of an impact on the final result. It’s worth speculating on that to understand our voting process better. What strikes me as more interesting though is that whichever side wins we end up with either the money men in charge or some remote elites working with powerful economic interests making all the key decisions. But I digress from the article in hand.
David Purchase
3 years ago
Tom, in your paragraph starting “Expected value is a concept from probability theory” (about the 15th paragraph) I think you have muddled up “I” and “you”. The bet, as you describe it, is clearly in my interests if played over the long term (five times in six I lose £1, but once every six times I win £10), not yours. Would it be worth amending? It may confuse those less familiar with probability theory than you are.
Alex Michell: “Scott Adams wrote a short story …”. I recall a similar story from the fifties or sixties by one of the sci-fi greats (Heinlein, perhaps?). The whole point was to identify the individual, though iirc it was done by psychologists rather than statisticians.
Dave Tagge
3 years ago
While I have my own reservations and would not say that separation of migrant children from parents is an ideal policy, there’s an underlying rationale for it. It’s not simply “bafflingly cruel.”
Part of it is in fact laid out in the Reuters article linked by Mr. Chivers: “Currently [in 2017], families contesting deportation or applying for asylum are generally released from detention quickly and allowed to remain in the United States until their cases are resolved. A federal appeals court ruling bars prolonged child detention.”
and
“Children would be put into protective custody with the Department of Health and Human Services, in the ‘least restrictive setting’ until they can be taken into the care of a U.S. relative or state-sponsored guardian.”
So, given backlogs and the fact that about 70% of asylum claims were denied by U.S. Immigration Courts in FY 2019, there’s a view that the ability to be released into the U.S. is in and of itself a draw for people to arrive at the border with weak asylum claims. (Note: I’m not sure of that denial number for those arising at the Mexican border, but the number 1 nationality for approved U.S. asylum claims that year was Chinese, and Chinese asylum seekers had 75% of their asylum claims approved. Three Central American nations and Mexico were #2, #4, #5, and #6 on the list, with India at #3. I’d view the 70% as a likely understatement of the denial number for asylum candidates at the U.S. southern border).
Also that 70% denial rate has been over 50% since 2015, and in 2019 U.S. Immigration Courts actually *approved* more asylum requests than any other year since 2000. The denial rate was still relatively high because they decided a lot more cases.
Some people also don’t show up for hearings. Some very high figures quoted on that are apparently unrepresentative findings from limited subsets of Immigration Court dockets, but I’ve seen even the Washington Post agree that around 20% of 30% of immigration court removal orders are decided in absentia. In absentia indicates that the person subject to the order hadn’t appeared for the hearing. That rises to about 45% for hearings of those who aren’t in custody.
So, while I can understand not being thrilled with the policy, it wasn’t simply pulled out of thin air. It intended to make it less attractive to engage in behavior that could be viewed as gaming the U.S. immigration system. IIRC, the ultimate resolution of the situation was that the Mexican government agreed (under some degree of U.S. pressure) that asylum seekers could remain in Mexico while awaiting adjudication of their U.S. cases.
All of this assumes that the side you vote for will act in a way consistent with the values they claim to represent, which they frequently do not. As Geoff Norcott said recently when asked if he now regretted voting for a Conservative government… “I regret not getting one”.
I think this really misses the point of voting. The value of voting is not about selecting leaders or influencing policy, but as a critical component of a system that limits the entrenchment of power. Roughly put, it says that “the cushy lifestyle of you and your friends fundamentally depends on a very large number of people not finding you to be a total bum”. While usually presented as an endorsement of a large bundle of complex decisions (no small part of which will never be implemented, of course), by and large a vote is an answer to the question “are the current halfwits in office still performing reasonably satisfactorily?”.
Thus, the value of a vote to you is the risk that the people who actually do bother to vote will not share your opinion, while the value of a vote to society is to decrease the ease with which power can be indefinitely seized by a small minority.
Of course, when people say you vote matters, they’re not referring to you in the singular, but people in general to inspire a reasonable turn out. It’s a call against apathy, not for an effect. But interesting stats, nevertheless. Scott Adams wrote a short story about future elections being decided by statisticians working out which individual best represented the majority view and giving the vote to only them.
That Scott Adams story does not sound so far-fetched if instead of an individual you substitute a focus group.
‘Also, while ““ I’m surprised to learn ““ fewer immigrants have been deported per year under his presidency than under Obama’s,’
Not for nothing was Obama known as ‘The Deporter In Chief’. I believe he deported more people than all other presidents put together.
He is “surprised to learn” but I’ll wager not so surprised as to wonder how he came to be that way.
So what’s the better alternative? In the scope of a presidential election or Brexit referendum, one vote in and of itself won’t sway the tide. But that vote multiplied by millions of others is what a system of self-governance is all about. When legislation is passed or Supreme Court rulings come down, those too are results of that one vote some person cast.
True.
Democracy, with its various inbuilt conspicuously ‘independent’ checks and balances is still the least worst form of government, at least when compared to all the others, as the old saying goes, but the other takeaways from this?
First off, it’s always better, for a number of reasons, when these things really aren’t that close.
Secondly, your vote might well get you the individual candidate you want in an election or to be on the ‘winning side of referendum, but neither offers any cast iron guarantees of the subsequent decisions you might want made, be they promised or not.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly and most pertinently in these troubled times, democracy is imperfect and its enduring legitimacy lays in the acquiescence of the vast majority of its losers, for good or ill.
Once that goes, however, the whole edifice starts to crumble….
**First, it’s unlikely that your vote will be the one that, on its own, changes the course of an election.**
Who knew?
Yes, as a statement of the obvious it’s up there with the best of them.
Joe Biden is obviously old and not in the best of health. What happens if he stands down?
Your calculations assume a 5% change in Government expenditure, would that be true under the new President (the VP on Biden’s ticket).
Also, it is not just expenditure, what would happen to the income (GDP)?
This is, of course, the problem of trying to reduce the reason for voting down to a money spreadsheet. It is not possible to quantify the changes that are possible and therefore negates the whole argument.
All of which presumes that at least one candidate is qualified and worthy of election. Failing that, I favor leaving the ballot blank: a “no” vote for both
‘Still, the Trump administration, although in general (as I understand it) a legislative and policy failure…’
Then you don’t understand much, do you? Whether you like his policies or not, Trump has delivered on more of his promises that the last five or six presidents combined. Moreover, he is the first president since Carter not to start or join a new war, or to invade another country. In January this year black and hispanic employment was at its highest level ever, partly due to Trump’s Opportunity Zones. He has also been releasing from jail some of the (mostly black) people locked up for decades, for non-violent offences, by Biden’s 1994 Crime Bill.
He has also built most of his wall/fence and overseen the signing of highly significant peace agreements in the ME. He walked with the leader of North Korea across the Korean border. It might only have been symbolic, but it was something,
‘Also, while ““ I’m surprised to learn ““ fewer immigrants have been deported per year under his presidency than under Obama’s…’
Why are you surprised to learn this? We have known for years that Obama was known as the ‘Deporter in Chief. He deported four million. He built the cages in which the (largely) trafficked children were held. (Many of those children who get through are used as child sex slaves etc, something Trump is doing something about).
Really, I despair when people who know nothing are given media platforms.
This just sounds like a long way of saying, the vote means f**k all.
It’s a curious approach, applying statistics to what’s usually measured in the abstract – of civic duty, empowerment and self worth.
A single vote may or may not have much of an impact on the final result. It’s worth speculating on that to understand our voting process better.
What strikes me as more interesting though is that whichever side wins we end up with either the money men in charge or some remote elites working with powerful economic interests making all the key decisions. But I digress from the article in hand.
Tom, in your paragraph starting “Expected value is a concept from probability theory” (about the 15th paragraph) I think you have muddled up “I” and “you”. The bet, as you describe it, is clearly in my interests if played over the long term (five times in six I lose £1, but once every six times I win £10), not yours. Would it be worth amending? It may confuse those less familiar with probability theory than you are.
Alex Michell: “Scott Adams wrote a short story …”. I recall a similar story from the fifties or sixties by one of the sci-fi greats (Heinlein, perhaps?). The whole point was to identify the individual, though iirc it was done by psychologists rather than statisticians.
While I have my own reservations and would not say that separation of migrant children from parents is an ideal policy, there’s an underlying rationale for it. It’s not simply “bafflingly cruel.”
Part of it is in fact laid out in the Reuters article linked by Mr. Chivers: “Currently [in 2017], families contesting deportation or applying for asylum are generally released from detention quickly and allowed to remain in the United States until their cases are resolved. A federal appeals court ruling bars prolonged child detention.”
and
“Children would be put into protective custody with the Department of Health and Human Services, in the ‘least restrictive setting’ until they can be taken into the care of a U.S. relative or state-sponsored guardian.”
So, given backlogs and the fact that about 70% of asylum claims were denied by U.S. Immigration Courts in FY 2019, there’s a view that the ability to be released into the U.S. is in and of itself a draw for people to arrive at the border with weak asylum claims. (Note: I’m not sure of that denial number for those arising at the Mexican border, but the number 1 nationality for approved U.S. asylum claims that year was Chinese, and Chinese asylum seekers had 75% of their asylum claims approved. Three Central American nations and Mexico were #2, #4, #5, and #6 on the list, with India at #3. I’d view the 70% as a likely understatement of the denial number for asylum candidates at the U.S. southern border).
Also that 70% denial rate has been over 50% since 2015, and in 2019 U.S. Immigration Courts actually *approved* more asylum requests than any other year since 2000. The denial rate was still relatively high because they decided a lot more cases.
Some people also don’t show up for hearings. Some very high figures quoted on that are apparently unrepresentative findings from limited subsets of Immigration Court dockets, but I’ve seen even the Washington Post agree that around 20% of 30% of immigration court removal orders are decided in absentia. In absentia indicates that the person subject to the order hadn’t appeared for the hearing. That rises to about 45% for hearings of those who aren’t in custody.
So, while I can understand not being thrilled with the policy, it wasn’t simply pulled out of thin air. It intended to make it less attractive to engage in behavior that could be viewed as gaming the U.S. immigration system. IIRC, the ultimate resolution of the situation was that the Mexican government agreed (under some degree of U.S. pressure) that asylum seekers could remain in Mexico while awaiting adjudication of their U.S. cases.