Of 16,000 congressional elections over the last 100 years only one was decided by a single vote. So in some sense your vote doesn't matter, in that if you didn

Of 16,000 congressional elections over the last 100 years only one was decided by a single vote. So in some sense your vote doesn't matter, in that if you didn't vote the result would likely be the same. But one way every vote contributes is increasing voter turnout. Although your contribution is small, it always counts, no matter who you vote for. Mid-term elections have been averaging 37% voter turnout. As turnout gets smaller election results can drift arbitrarily far away from what the whole population wants, because only a subset is deciding. Corruption and manipulation become easier. High voter turnout is really really important to making the the election a legitimate process. I wrote about this recently: http://www.kmeme.com/2010/10/why-you-should-vote.html http://www.kmeme.com/2010/10/why-you-should-vote.html A thread with other suggestions why voting might be rational: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/2z6/why_should_you_vote/ http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/2z6/why_should_you_vote...