Although I intend on voting tomorrow, I don't agree that it's a "duty" to vote. In fact, I usually don't vote in local elections if I don't have substantial kno

Although I intend on voting tomorrow, I don't agree that it's a "duty" to vote. In fact, I usually don't vote in local elections if I don't have substantial knowledge about the candidates, and given that I've moved about 10 times in the last 6 years, that's often. (The top few Google hits do not amount to "substantial knowledge".) The purpose of voting is value discovery (analogous to "price discovery" in financial markets) but if I'm not able to evaluate the candidates, I'm not really assisting in that process; I'm just adding noise. I think that a major reason the two-party system exists is that a significant number of people vote based on party "brand name" without evaluating the individual candidates.