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by csallen 2751 days ago
I don't disagree, but probably the best way to value the importance of your vote is some equation where the biggest variables are the % chance of your side winning and the importance the issue at hand. The amount of voter suppression going on is, I think, an indirect way of estimating both of these things.
1 comments
Vraxx 2751 days ago
yeah, you're right about that, but given how difficult these things can be to actually measure in reality, I think an indirect measure is better than no measure at all (or a gut feeling). A lot of these races with heavy suppression were extremely close races, which obviously begs the question of how effective the voter suppression was and if it turned the tide (my money is on "almost certainly).

It turned out my vote was not particularly instrumental in the election I was participating in, but if just assumed that from the start I definitely wouldn't have gone out canvassing and trying to convince other people that their votes matter. If other people like me made similar decisions and didn't vote and didn't try to mobilize, would the election I participated in still have gone favorably? Maybe, but I know I sure felt a hell of a lot better doing everything I could than sitting on the couch worrying and fretting about things instead of actively trying to influence them.

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sDlEzAtyoNAz 2751 days ago
>but if just assumed that from the start I definitely wouldn't have gone out canvassing and trying to convince other people that their votes matter.

Why not? If you can sway the decisions of large numbers of people, that sounds like something that could have an impact on the outcome of the election. Would you feel badly that you were lying to them by telling them their vote mattered?

>If other people like me made similar decisions and didn't vote and didn't try to mobilize

Unless you make the decision to canvas/vote or not canvas/vote collectively, your own thought processes don't determine what those other people do, and wondering about what would happen if they did seems to me like some weird form of solipsism.

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