[tsimionescu]

If the vote ends 1000 to 0, then 999 votes haven't mattered at all, all those people could have stayed home and the result would have been the same. If it ends 1000 to 999, then if even one person had stayed home the result would have been different, so each vote was necessary for the current result.

[thaumasiotes]

Something's getting confused somewhere.

If the vote is 1000 to 0, then the result (vote count) will be different if one person stays home -- 999 to 0 -- but the result (victor) will be the same.

Exactly the same thing is true in the case where it's 1000 to 999. If one of the losing voters stays home, you get a different vote count --- 1000 to 998 -- and the same victor. There are 999 people, half the entire electorate, who can stay home without making any meaningful difference at all.

What is the difference that you see?

[tsimionescu]

Yes, I should have defined my terms, sorry.

To me, the vote count is not the result. The result is one of A won, B won, or that there is a draw. So if the vote count ends up 1 to 0 or 1000 to 0, A still wins, so the 999 votes don't really matter.

In the 1000 to 999 case, yes, everyone whose candidate lost could have stayed at home. But everyone whose candidate won had to come and vote, otherwise there would have been a draw and their candidate would have lost (or at least there would have been a draw).

Also, to be clear, all that I'm describing is more of an emotional argument - analyzing whose vote counts in an election or not is better done through game thelry. If you take the reasoning I laid down further, it sort of breaks down, and it only 'works' retroactively anyway. But I think it captures the feel of what it means for your vote to matter pretty decently.

I would bet that people who voted Biden in Georgia or Pensylvania in last week's elections feel that their personal vote was much more important than people who did the same in NYC do.