The Best of Reason Magazine: Your Vote Doesn't Count

Why (almost) everyone should stay home on Election Day

Katherine Mangu-Ward | 8.6.2024 6:00 PM

(Joanna Andreasson)

:15 :15

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The Best of Reason Magazine: Your Vote Doesn't Count

This week's featured article is "Your Vote Doesn't Count" by Katherine Mangu-Ward.

This audio was generated using AI trained on the voice of Katherine Mangu-Ward.

Music credits: "Deep in Thought" by CTRL and "Sunsettling" by Man with Roses

NEXT: Weighing Kamala Harris' Veep Options

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Gaear Grimsrud 10 hours ago

The best huh?

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1. Stuck in California 7 hours ago
  
  I questioned this a few “Best of” articles ago.
  
  Someone pointed out that, unfortnuately, yes. That is the best of Reason. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
  
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  1. Stupid Government Tricks 5 hours ago
    
    Unfortunately, even when they turn their blind eye to the matter.
    
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MasterThief 10 hours ago

Your vote certainly doesn’t count in a Democrat primary

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Social Justice is neither 10 hours ago

If you don’t vote your local Democrat machine will vote for you to fortify the results.

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Rick James 9 hours ago

Why (almost) everyone

I’m dying to find out what the exception is here…

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1. Stupid Government Tricks 9 hours ago
  
  Clickbait.
  
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Eeyore 6 hours ago

I have to at least take the time to vote no on all of the local initiatives.

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AT 6 hours ago

Reason dot com everyone! Losertarians on display!

Protect your civil rights by… um… abdicating them completely.

I love this part especially: This audio was generated using AI trained on the voice of Katherine Mangu-Ward.

Bro we fakin’ the podcasts now! From 2012!

2012!!!!

You seriously think we’re all retards, don’t you Reason.

DON’T YOU.

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Stupid Government Tricks 5 hours ago

I improved voting in my Chartertopia. Not perfect, just better.

You vote in your district election. The top three winners are elected. When they vote in the legislature, they cast as many votes as they won in their election. I call it proxying.

Every voter can submit the name of any voter, including themselves. One is drawn at random, and proxies all the remaining election votes. I call this one the amateur.

One improvement is it makes vote fraud much less important. Suppose 20,000 people vote: 5000 for A, 4000 for B, 3000 for C, 2999 for D, and various other miscellaneous candidates. If you fake two votes for D, C loses, but A and B are unchanged, and the amateur gets one more vote too. You’d have to stuff 1000 votes to make a bigger difference, and again, the amateur would also get more votes.

Counting votes is better too. All elections are handled by private election companies. When you vote, you get a copy of your ballot with a randomized ballot ID, the election name and the date (no time), all your votes, and nothing else, nothing to identify you. You dip your finger in ink to prevent duplicate voting. When the polls close, every election company publishes all ballots, including the ballot IDs.

This allows everyone to both add up the totals and to check their ballot against the published copy. If only one out of a hundred does check, that’s still too risky to change ballots, because if just one voter shows that kind of fraud, a whole lot of other voters will check theirs and show that mythical widespread fraud. Poll watchers count voters, making it hard to add any more than a very few extra ballots.

For those that care, it also makes voting much more important even in solid blue or red states, because all those “losing” votes actually do count in legislatures. Even the amateurs’ proxies count, and since people who vote for losers probably want anybody other than the mainstream parties, the amateur is better than nothing, even though odds are the amateur supports mainstream parties too.

Also, in the legislature, it takes 2/3 votes by both proxies and head count in all chambers to pass bills after a 30 day review period, and only 1/2 vote in any single chamber to repeal laws. And if the bill changes during the review period, it is no longer the same bill and has to restart the 30 day review period.

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