Taylor's Topics
by Brooks Taylor

· Recently, I came across an op-ed piece from Sheldon Richman, senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, VA. The title - "Your Vote Doesn't Count" -- caught my attention.

Richman, of course, was referring to everyone from President Clinton to the most obscure news anchorperson and editor repeating "every vote counts" in reference to the Florida fiasco.

He begins his piece by saying, "How does a 537-vote margin in Florida demonstrate that every vote counts? I know that the government's schools aren't terribly good at teaching our children arithmetic, but this is a little absurd. Bush won Florida by 537 votes. Should someone who would have voted for Gore but stayed home kick himself for letting Bush win? The answer is yes - if he could have cast 538 votes (which could only happen in Milwaukee this year or in Chicago decades ago). But it's one man, one vote, remember? Had this person exercised his 'civic duty' and voted, Bush's margin would have been 536. Conclusion: That person's vote did not count, if by 'count', we mean 'determine the outcome.' The same is true for every other person's vote. We can say that in Florida, every block of 537 votes counted, but that is far from saying each vote counted."

Every vote counts, Richman says, is nonsense. Rather, aggregate votes count. "If millions of Bush's or Gore's voters had stayed home, the outcome might have been different. But no one controls millions of votes.

"· On election day, voting is one of the actions I can take. But I submit that course of conduct to a test: Will I contribute to bringing about a desired outcome? That raised the question, what is the desired outcome? If it is to feel good about giving my sanction to a candidate I admire and to join in the community of like-minded citizens, then voting will bring that about. Thus, that may be a good reason to vote.

"But if the desired outcome is the election of a particular person, then my voting is unlikely to bring that about. Indeed, I have a better chance of being hit by lightning while driving to the polls than of breaking a tie in the election. In other words, determining the winner is a bad reason to vote."

Richman does offer a different spin on voting, and he is right if the margin is greater than one. But there have been elections decided by one vote or a coin flip.

I think I'll continue voting even if Richman says that one vote doesn't count, or count as per common belief.