Top Five Reasons to NOT Vote

"A rational individual should abstain from voting." 

- Patricia Funk, PhD

Of the many things economists on both sides of the political spectrum agree on, the most infamous is telling people it's not worth it to vote.  We just think voting is irrational, so here's five of the most compelling reasons you shouldn't vote:


5) You're not alone - In the video, I falsely state that most voting age Americans don't vote.  Still, over a third of eligible voters in the US don't vote for president (and many more don't bother with the midterm elections), so you'll still find plenty of others who didn't vote as well (you can find all the statistics for the 2012 election here).  Although, it may be hard to identify your fellow non-voters since many lie about voting, including who they voted for or whether they are even registered voters!

I decided this reason may be too weak, so here's a second and perverse incentive to not vote: many states assign jury duty from the voter registry. No vote = no jury duty.

4) You have the right to not vote - You have no duty as a citizen to vote and exercising the right to not vote is patriotic in it's own way.

3) Your vote is worthless! - This is pretty well covered in the video.  Naturally, the objection I always hear is that "if everybody thought like that, no one would vote!" - well, to that I can only say that people are still voting and you still have no effect on the outcome.  Call me to vote when turnout is less than 0.1 percent and I'll start thinking about it.  Another objection I hear is that you need to vote in local elections, but your vote is near worthless there, too.  Only 21 have ever been close enough to be swayed by one vote, but while you may have a better chance of determining the outcome, the stakes are much smaller.

2) Voting causes death - The extra traffic from voting on a presidential election day results in about 24 deaths!  Of course, this could be prevented if we could find a way to reliably vote online...

1) Opportunity costs are too high - Maybe over $1 billion!  All the time and money you spend on voting, which adds nothing to the nation's decision, could have been used on something else more worthwhile.  Don't forget all the time and effort you wasted trying to figure out who to vote for as well.  You may prefer to practice rational ignorance, since the costs of educating yourself on who to vote for outweigh the benefits you get from voting.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to hash it out in the comments below, on the video, or even on Facebook or Twitter.