Seriously, my fellow lefties...

[DavidB.]

I largely agree with DFB's posts here, but the "your vote decides who will be president" line of reasoning that is prevalent in this thread is just as Atlas as being overly picky regarding the question which candidate one should support. An individual's vote is a drop in the ocean and doesn't matter.

[DavidB.]

I don't really understand why people treat voting as some extension of their personality where it's important that they can feel nice or whatever?.

Because no important election has ever been decided by one vote.

The statistical probability that one's vote is the decisive one is smaller than the probability that one dies in an accident on one's way to the polling station.

[DavidB.]

In my experience there's a huge amount of variation in what even many very educated people will tell you about the ethics of voting when you ask them why it's important to vote and how you should select a candidate. Many of them jump straight to the shockingly and transparently weak "deciding vote" argument.

Yes, that's a really stupid argument. I vote because it makes me feel good, not because it would be rational. And this is the case for most people, really. They only don't know or admit it.